Sedge
Along the river’s-edge,
immemorial interface of water and land,
gloopy brown water eddies
among minnow-rich willow fronds,
skeins of tangled roots, bits of driftwood;
the place for kingfisher, otter,
- water-rat, moor-hen, frog and vole
where golden flakes of sunlight shimmy
as the rivers weighty body slurps
with the low-slung powers of gravity
ever on and downward, salt-sea hungry,
drinking the slate heavens dry,
hurrying from upland crevasses
through swampy bog and peat,
tumbling over rocky outcrops
sinking into grooves and gullies
building up momentum and mass
with the trickle and flow
of every tiny brook and ditch;
shaping granite silky smooth in passing,
kissing the belly of the wideworld sky, seasonally, cyclically
since early earth cooled and time began
Rivers everywhere.
Primeval sanctuaries,
sources of all bounty and sustenance,
unbelonging, nameless, without price;
their arterial network
expresses the planets own life-force
and the Elements integrity of process
and journey of being.
Any plant or creature, small or large
subsequential and dependent.