Article voiceover
Sometimes poetry just wants to be written, and I don’t have a say in it. I just hold the pen.
1: Dressed in water coat, rocks as my shoes, feet light on the riverbed, dancing on pebbles, green hair trailing sleepily behind me, I am the river spirit. The meandering is my body the pulse my heart, the reflections my soul. I am mothered by the mountains, I give birth to the sea. I am beauty, I am fear I am life and death, light and darkness, tingle of joy and chill to the bone. I am the whisper, the roar, the melody and the base drum. I am never still, never the same. Trust that I always and never can be trusted. My currents feast on fallen firefly wings and broken hearts, yet my pools comfort the dewinged and the heartbroken. I am the girl born, and the boy drowned, I keep both their souls in my bosom. I am the gushing flood after hibernation, stretching my limbs across the banks, taking them by force. I am the nursery of tadpoles and fry, I poke pebbles awake with sun rays, and paint a thousand mirrors on spawning trout. I take tea with the clouds on days of grey. I mutter in trickles under icy covers. I have innervated these lands since time began, I carry with me the stories of evolution, of the peoples who have nurtured this land, of goose, ant, mountain and moss. Listen and I will sing you all their songs. I dance the meadows, paint the forests and break the morning. I am life on earth, the air you breathe and the beating of your heart. I can take it all away – dam me and I will damn you. Don’t think you are more important than fern, leech or water stride. They were all here before you. Care for me and I will rock you to sleep, cradle you like a baby, but if you vex me I will break you like a twig. I’ll call on my river sisters, we will all outlive you. 2: Your move.
The river in the picture is the Zeller Ache in Mondsee, Austria.
Such richness, such pace - I would love to hear you read this!
Love this!