ISSN 1758-6488
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Two poems Poetry |
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The River on the Terrace
Time after time, the river of light
Flows down the broad steps of the terrace
Between the white walls and blue shutters
And under the carob and grapevine, coming on
In slow gold blinks, in indigo and rust,
Minting coins to sink among the shadows
It discards as it conceives them,
Folding clean sheets out of nothing,
Wheeling then pausing minutely as if
On the unbroken skin of itself.
Its depth is the authority it wields
To hold us to this wager, sliding past our feet
Over the plain of cracked paving-stones,
Onwards to the terrace-end, then out and down
Into the burning mezzogiorno air.
The river sinks into the rock. It never was,
Until a breeze comes up the valley
And the water re-awakes. Again we watch,
Like travellers halted at a ford,
Beside this force that seems to be anxiety.
What is it like, what is it like,
Unpassing epoch-afternoon, dry bed
Through which the river fades, then flows?
Like love, and like anxiety, like this.
