The Unforgiving River

I was thirty years old when the river found me.
I walked beside it, some miles every day
Every step closer to its edge and then barefoot in the shallows.
At thirty-three it rained for what felt like a month
And the river, in cruel and crushing spate,
Dragged me off the bank and pinned me to the bottom.
I turned over and over in the dark and struggled and swallowed.
Dashed on the stoney bottom beneath the unbearable weight of the water,
I believed I was dying. Perhaps I was.

Once the river has taken you under, its call is constant.
It calls and you are immediately journeying back there
River-bound through the molasses jungle on an infernal patrol.
You try to change direction,
To pull away and run home but there you stand, by the bank,
Naked and knee deep in its brackish edges.
Full of terror under the moonless sky,
Stepping deeper and deeper until your feet don’t feel the bottom
And your head tilts back and you are gone.

One day, you might escape the river.
When it slows in a turn you might grasp at the reeds and hold tight.
Some days they’ll give. Some days they’ll bear your weight
And you might haul your self up and catch your breath on the bank under the gentle sun.
You are resurrected, there, amongst the reeds and the long grass,
Feeling strong enough to start the long walk home
Through peaceful villages and friendly towns you used to know.
But then, one night at home, in the floorboard-creaking, dripping-tap darkness,
It calls again and out of the door and through the deserted streets
Uou return to the poison water.

At a fold in the river, under the burning canopy,
Where trailing branches dip below the surface,
When you are starving, rotten and wasted in the mist,
Look out for the boatman. He is death’s enemy.
He will cary you home and he will give you the cure.

The water is poison.
Every day it kills you.
Over and over again.
Every dam will fail.
Every bridge collapses.
The river is cold and cruel.
The river is long and black.
The river is unforgiving.
But the boatman will carry you home.

Meadowlands

Across the Blue Man's Bower Where a great house once stood By a dammed ochre stream Where my father and uncle swam In sixty-six or seven. Near the flooded field Navigated by red pontoons Where a horse would almost drown Forty years from then. I saw her, neck deep in water, Veiled below the surface, In the crook of the stream willow, Her tender feet disturbing silt. And over the Barfield, Where I first fired a gun And was myself missed By an errant, drifting shot - By just turning into the wind. In the wild hawthorn hedges, I heard the torment of the thrush And felt the nettle’s sudden sear On my young and wandering calf. I saw tortured, matted rushes Blinding the bank’s brisk edge, And the strange switchback bend Leading up to the quarry head, Left overgrown and overlooked. The long line of the gun, Its weight on my shoulder’s slope, And the rot-sweet scent of rain Stirred an inherited memory, Until now kept hidden. As I passed beneath the railway, Alongside the water works And saw white smoke rising From the Old Flatts furnace. I crossed the half-moon bridge, Over fine minnows and broad bullheads. I passed the rusted circle sluice That was terrifying to me then, And near a frigate-grey pylon, Humming in the damp, rigid air, I found the horse-shoe river - Stagnant and strangled, And cut off from its kin.

Up on the Hill and in Its Shadow Below

A quarrel, between grass and gorse, At the edge of an emaciated wood. What does the land know? A dead lake rising up on a wasted field. That pungent water, its surface suddenly broken. The scorched circle where a fire once licked. Torn clothes in the tree. A boot forgotten - Or abandoned in retreat. The earth there, stained with memory, Where deep roots go undisturbed. I saw a figure against the sky. A watcher on the crest of the earthen wave. He was there and gone again. A shepherd fearing for his flock? Or more likely fear itself, rational and cold. And I frightened a bird in the long grass. Out of the undertow it flew, alarmed. The gate I had taken led nowhere. Just more withering, wasting ways, to find myself lost on the hill. An old camp below the graves. Like Victorian stones, piled in. Half collapsed and all askew. Those broken, aching teeth, inside an open and waiting mouth. I won’t return to the hill. I have seen it all and sensed the dread. At a certain pitch, along a certain path, I have seen time collapse, Into the crumbling, hateful earth.