Anne Stevenson
Attacking the Waterfall (North Wales)
Curlews long gone from the valley,
and now swallows that used to swoop
and then again swoop,
lightening the load of the sky,
are this summer so few
that the thrill of their sighting,
just one? no, two, is a flicker of hope,
a flare marginal to their dying –
though the rhaeadr still quarrels intimately
with its mountains,
skirmishing, water against water, quick time,
slow time with the sloth of stones.
As a hemisphere skews towards the sun,
the cwm competes, clock time, against migrants
raring to have fun.
Up, counter to the cataract, they swarm,
warrior ants in wetsuits and cocky helmets,
gutsy, braggish, betting on their luck,
pitching their rise against a fall mad Adam
fancied was his own.
For sure, the fall is nature’s.
Listen! The old man’s raging on. Shit! Fuck!
ricochet from the battleground – gunshot,
or a fighter plane, maybe, testing the barriers.
Page(s) 23
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