River Brim

River Brim

Below the tree line the red sun drops like a flare.

A light bluish mist lifts from the river’s surface.

The river water brims like milk in a cow’s teat.

Cream petals drift along the wet bank weightlessly.

A warm rose scent wafts through the idling steamy air.

Cloudy green currents tumble the swift wild waters.

The river casts its glinting lure to reel me in.

The reek of the chilly water seizes my lungs.

I can’t see the bottom and my limbs are shadows.

Beneath the river’s skin is a world of secrets.

I wonder what hides like a toothy pike lurking

in the green opacity to prey on a shoal.

This river rises in a mysterious place,

But it never loses faith in its direction.

It doesn’t know it has shaped our villages and towns

And nourished our land, our wonder, words and writing;

The skin of every sliding stream hides a poem

waiting to froth the reeds like agitated foam.

From the deep murk there rises in bright fountain spurts,

A gush of images and a downpour of words.