River

Past the locked garden gate / it came carrying
leaves.
We first learnt about death / from its rough drag
and hum:
it spread like thick spilt ink / leaking into our
games
and scoring through our maps / at Thames,
Severn, Arun.

It might have been a chink / in the brittle
landscape,
a typographic slip / turning us upside-down
so that we saw ourselves / in the shimnmering
people
trapped in the reflection / of a tiny drowning
town.

From a window we'd watch / men draw fish from
its curves
and children juggle nets / through its scales and
ridges:
we bent like roots to it / and grew old while it
drove
on to carve up cities / into blocks and bridges

We first learnt about God / from its scattering of
light:
from watching its shallows / where at the edge of
day
distant figurse gathered / to stand knee-deep,
waiting
for it to wash their bones / clean, clean as a blank
page.

Sam Meekings
http://www.spl.org.uk/best-poems/005.htm