RIVERBANK

Never to smell the earthen
Darkness, the dank and murky
Muddy brownness of my riverbank

Where, having left curling
Sunken toes, fearless youthful
Longings and anguishing expectations

Did move on to the concrete
Fashion of a nervy steel world
To seek out the woman having lost the girl.

Forgotten the musky scent of water
Rushing reeds, distant hayloft
Yellow, drying in the sweet sun

To callous innocent hands
Scraped, torn tender-
On broken glass and rusty ruins.

The river mud, soft allure
Downwind of piney wood
Full moon peeks, breaks the gloom

Of fog shrouded, spirit haunted
Night, love’s sincerest
Blessed samples offered


Tender summer years spent
Bursting, longing, lovingly eyeing
Distant rippling tidal banks

And birds, blue jays jeering
Jokingly before frantic flight;
(as if anyone ordered them off)

And aloft, to shift the foggy
Bottom of morning, to disturb
The dancing sunlight rays.

But flight, a necessary
Mode of escape, pries at the toeholds
To loosen, are river washed again.

© Celeste Plowden 2010