On
summer solstice day whilst journeying
Like
Dante, I came upon a river
Glossily
flowing by,
Stippled
by sky;
At
weirs it hissed and tumbled trembling,
Falling
like napped flints, glinting hither-thither.
In
its fast-flowing but shallow reaches
Its
stony sun-striated bed
Was
clear through brown water;
An
eel-grass halter
Dully
waved at the bankside vetches
As
sailing clumps of vegetation sped.
The
heat was up and the mid-morning sky
Like
Wedgwood-ware was blue and white,
Pouring
down light; the swifts
With
dips and lifts
Screamed
above collared doves, wary
And
chestnut in an alder’s thick-leaved bight.
Outleaning
with its grey and ragged bole
Crack
willow fingered at the stream;
Moorhen
with scarlet bills
Stalked
the banks’ sills;
The
willow’s shock-haired seeds like spoil
Voyaged
in the breeze and the sun’s gleam.
And
so the waterwheel: in water’s roar
It
split the polished serpentine
To
acrobatic frothing,
Coiling,
bucking,
Absorbing
power to drive its gear
And
through a flywheel, a production line.
Its
battered paddles, wetly mossed with age,
Heavily
trundled, flinging spray
Which
flashed like metals turning
Or
sulphur burning;
Downstream,
the water’s shattered suffrage
Settled,
and foam and mote-specked swept away.
Here
and far the wheel’s rattle caught the ears
Like
a shout in the dark forest
Of
waters; there’s no showing
What
brute knowing
It’s
symbol for – the bitter tears
Of
one who’s on a treadmill or a quest.
====================
©
July 2013
