simonhlilly

The connected river that flows

I know its might, from heart to leaf,

From word to page,

From cool late summer dawn

To roaring furnace midday field,

From edge to edge, hill to hill.

Each line, the tally of a brief life,

Day by day the shifting light of seasons

Wheeling to horizon and back.

I know the road from Llangammarch to Cefngorwydd:

Its rising folds, its wheeling kites, its sudden goldfinches,

Its sways, its opening out.

I know the road to Llanwrtyd by its feel:

Its steady swoop, its hugging bends,

Its piling hills, its green and dancing views.

Each day a tally on a season’s sun.

The river of sound from root to root.

The river of light bedded deep inside,

The river that roars off the edge of the world.

The tally of breath the seasons count.

The sprinkled drifting flocks, slower that the day.

So far from shore I hear the sea’s roar,

The breaking moment – war on the border

Of the living and the dead.

A drift of bitter smoke across the rose garden.