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Mist rivers
This is a reworking of another poem,
Mist. I can't just now decide
which of them I like the better.
This is a day of mist. Yesterday
airborne rivers flowed down
from the hills, held for a while
along the lines of the stream
and the railway track, then
poured over the fields. The last
of the light fell on a milky, flooded land.
This morning only tall trees stood
above it, and they were beaded and bowed.
A clammy silence closed on me as
I walked down the hill, my passage
marked by a curling, swirling trail.
I breasted the ghosts of the sea.
Then the mist boiled off. Grasses
and trees shook away their dewy
covering. Now, sun sinking,
the phantom rivers flood once more
and the view closes in.
Somerset 1998
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