The sun fells the trees into long shadows.
He stands staring with unreadable eyes.
Everything in the land speaks to him.
He remembers barges like floating jewels
braceleted in flow under a blue ease,
broad horses lumping along the towpaths,
the locks filling in a tremor of light.
He remembers the bridges stone by stone,
Granite and limestone sparkling slap by
slap.
Now the bridges hump over chokes of slime.
Water hens question with their shocking cries.
Lanes rush dryly over the slugged canal.
No bargepole can fend off the melt of time.
But his barging past stays present to him.
He reveres the waterway though it cannot trump
the wrack of time. For it is not all gone.
the wrack of time. For it is not all gone.
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