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Howard Wright

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Confluence

i

I climb the stairs under the eaves away from
the pollution of light, to an illfitting river
considered better than a lake because it carries
this weightless cargo to you: the Evening Star rather
than the Morning Star because it is more romantic,
though they are one and the same and just as far.


ii

The scratch of light straightens itself,
a gossamer strand, a crack in the pane of glass
through everything living; a particle flick
and feather, the wisp and whistle again and again
overarm against the swelling green and stone,
the kingfisher blue-flame, the fluorescent willow.


iii

Salmon ape dolphins, swallows become flying-fish,
midges are sea-spray, and the prehistoric dragonflies,
like neon sticks, embers of ether, tease
a flurry of waves corralled and coerced by the wind
let loose from the wind-farm used for harvesting
the storms crashing down from the sun.


iv

The folds of the wake undercut the exposed bank,
the soft guts, those floodplain meanders where all
waters meet and swallow each other, take a breath
and go under to feed the sediment.There are limits,
channels, sign-posts; two rivers with one name,
one body, as long as it takes to get to the ocean.

 

Page(s) 78-79

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