Robert James Berry
Leaves
Childhood draws me
To the brink of a river
Where by the reeds
Bullfrogs are bold as dragons
And sucking mud is more
Treacherous than memory.
Rain sweet as treacle
Plops midstream;
Clouds of sticklebacks
Are magnified to sea monsters
Plunging the shadows.
Now these days have been mislaid,
Extinguished like the sticky orange sun
Of boyhood
The burning knuckles and eyes of time
Sting sharp as chastisement.
I watch shoals of drowned leaves
Spin down river,
Wading round the last bend
Before sunset steals them.
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Robert James Berry was born in 1960 in the UK and currently lives and writes in Lincoln. He has had poems published in the UK, USA, New Zealand, India and Canada, and his first volume Smoke was published in 2000.
Page(s) 52
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