We’re always so keen to be moving on to new beginnings, I though it might be good to dawdle a bit, like the river is doing at the moment.
Unlike the year we moved here, when I heard the water through the open windows on the first night and thought it was pouring with rain, this year the river is very low and practically silent.
So, however inconvenient the heavy rain is, I’ll have to hope for a wet winter. Or a very cold one, so there’s plenty of snow to thaw and fill the rivers next spring. (See what I mean about always wanting new beginnings?)
Unfortunately, even though the first draft of this was written in an email dated September 15th 2007, I think it’s still a draft.
here; now
The river dapples at smooth white stone.
Here, it dawdles to a pool where dippers
dive and underwater glide, playing
at being penguins. Brown fish laze
in sun-gold shallows. Crescent twists
of silver bellies flash like shooting stars –
always out of reach. Meniscoid footprints
darken the surface as waterboatmen
twitch and drift; they scull against the flow,
stay constantly within a flick
of here and now.
don't confuse the narrator 