Random Reminiscences of Water

 


Two siblings race in monsoon rain up the path in a Singapore yard;

No likelihood I’d lose, the eldest by two years.   

Sticklebacks dart, tiny missiles secreted in Hampshire’s chalk streams;

My chilled hands drip platinum drops.

A vixen pounces into feathery pristine snow. Her flicker of flame

Doused through thin ice in a sluggish flow. 

On an Exmouth rock pool, my shadow obscures the surface glitter;

Tiny crabs dance a fox-trot into seaweed cover.

Just the rain, in all its moods, on a roof or window, is a fall into joy;

Many hours can pass in a blissful trance.

On the Ouse Washes, a hundred swans feed in their own reflections,

Fragmentary glimpses of perfection.

Blossom from cherry and crab-apple powder the pools at Giverny;

Bound buds of narcissi sway in papery wraps.

Heard only by fish, waterlilies break open with muffled detonations;

Above heart shaped platters stand their transient jewels.

On a Minoan vase, 1500 B.C., dolphins cavort in curvilinear waves,

Its glass case lightly misted with my breath.


Barbara Grafton


Image Jan Willem

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