MAY

The River’s Story
I remember when life was good.
I tumbled down mountains,
Shilly-shallied across meadows,
I laughed and gurgled through woods,
Stretched and yawned in a myriad of floods.
Insects, weightless as sunbeams,
Settled upon my skin to drink.
I wore lily-pads like medals.
Fish, lazy and battle scarred,
Gossiped beneath them.
The damselflies were my ballerinas,
The pike my ambassadors.
Kingfishers, disguised as rainbows,
Were my secret agents.
It was a sweet time, a gone-time,
A time before the factories grew,
Brick by greedy brick,
And left me cowering in monstrous shadows.
Like drunken giants
They vomited their poisons into me.
Tonight
A scattering of vagrant bluebells,
Dwarfed by those same poisons,
Toll my ending.
Children, come and find me if you wish,
I am your inheritance.
Behind the derelict housing-estates,
You will discover my remnants.
Clogged with garbage and junk,
To an open sewer I’ve shrunk.
I, who have flowed through history,
Who have seen hamlets become villages,
Villages become towns, towns become cities,
Am reduced to a trickle of filth,
Beneath the still, burning stars.