We are all river

“When you strike water / you strike your own face”*

  6.30am: I wake debating with myself

about the eco changes of rivers.

 Somnolence of quiet flow at the curve

                where I meditate versus

                                      the rush of dam flow

for our power needs.

          Here is the captured flow

in my tap for morning coffee,

the shower head’s warm therapy.

The Forth flows from the Pelion,

over seven dams, under bridges

      of steel

and wood, over limestone,

around my toes, past platypus burrow,

along grass verges,

        around trout, over litter

and cattle corpse, by power stations,

into puddles,

into the mouths of small creatures,

past village parks, under fog

                               and dew, over

                        round white pebbles,

                            by barely sealed roads,

                       through sewerage pipes,

                    into a wide sandy bay.

                                               Quick, quick, slow,

                                           a pluck on violin strings.

                 The river is looking confused at the

                        U-turn, escaping into clay banks

                                    or eddying about in circles driving

                                                                    the fish crazy in its dance.

                                                           Will we drink that stir of crazy

                                           when it meets our dinner plate as salmon?

         We are all river,

                 the damp within us,

                        the 60% wetness we drank

                                  in bucket loads or stole

                             from the moist sky

                                          before it could reach another flow.

                               I can feel fish scales in my skin,

                                     toxins in my blood.

                                             When I melt, I am water,

                                   womb, snow milk, sun stream –

                                                a steamy down drift, a polished bone.