You flow endlessly.
Over you your lights are beautiful—luminous and dark, moving and still,
broken and whole.
In summer, columns of light—mottled by leaves.
In winter, the bleak light over farmland, the frosted-grey depth.
Today, in spring, lights dancing in and out of shadow—concealing and
revealing.
In your course you are infinitely changing—neither
crooked nor straight.
You fit your banks.
Running you are beautiful—slow in the deep pools—vociferous and fast
in the shallows.
In private land you are hidden.
In public land you are open.
Beneath bridges you reflect back the faces of watchers.
In winter, you fill with water and become clouded.
You race between alders, pound through sluices, tumble over fords.
You wear a sullen expression.
In summer, you slow up and become limpid.
You display your weed in long floating trails.
You glitter past grazing cattle.
Then after long concealment your fish appear—sparkling-sided,
melting and merging, vanishing and visible. |
