Some rivers are easy going
others dour and broody
giving little of substance away
this one has been willing to concede
air above the Aire rendered fresher of late
sky-blue thinking sobered into concrete greys
raindrops on a downbeat day ruminate in silence
steel fins bristle
cantilever
equal to the stress
memory’s sustainable timbers shiver into momentary drizzle
on a morning of cold enigmas
my yearning is hard to pronounce
an agitated back and forth of froth
fringing the weir’s apron
the Sally Army band has turned a corner
children too young to remember
wilt like poppies in the chill
leaves lost in desultory traffic
are notes spattered from the trees’ trumpets
‘Lest we forget,’ a sea cadet’s fading epaulette
engulfed by the end of the street
my song is a salmon out of local water
flinging its tiny cells against indifference
stretching its scales over untold next to nothings
losing energy, heart and tune
till the quack of a dowdy mallard in the muck
arcs into sudden melody
like the very word leaping
from mud-suck and mire of language
the swan’s neck of its shaping
into silvery-airey light
catching at my hand
like a tentative toddler
tripping the whole length of the spine
of the fluent line of its footbridge.
Ray Hearne
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