Horsebridge

My second poem, written over the past couple of days, addresses a memory from this time of the year but some fifteen or more years ago :-

It’s a busy day down there

as I peer over the bridge wall.

Along the lane I’ve enjoyed the blue sky,

the sun in my face as I walked, screwing my eyes,

the swoop of the swallows, chant of yellowhammers.

Now I’m leaning on these old stones

to gaze down into another world.

Fringed by ferns and loosestrife and hemp agrimony

the surface of the idling stream,

deep pooled and slow-moving here, is

pulsating with gold and silver whirligigs,

each one a splinter of sunlight unexpectedly mobile,

a dot of raw energy spinning around.

Above them bright damselflies float and whisper,

meeting and mating, delighting in the mix of sun and shade.

Now and again they settle, straight-winged,

just for a moment on some leaf or frond,

till perhaps a shadow crosses

to make them lift away. Today’s bright sun

has inspired all this busy motion. None of it was here

when yesterday I made the same walk under cloud, but now

it’s a busy day down there,

and everything seems to be dancing.

Meanwhile, down below where the dark water drifts,

it is business as usual at a deeper level.

There are other creatures moving, unseen by me,

nor, I suppose, by those sun-struck whirligigs and damsels:

the stream’s hunters continue to ply their stealthy trade

today as yesterday, and as every day.

Their community of violence does not reference the sun;

they do not seek or need the light.