White noise, brown water. She snatches sticks, tickles the grass. Do the fish think it’s a bit windy today? Is the water’s wash a gill-gale? Or perhaps it’s a firm massage A loving caress of their silky sides The river gives her children Squeezed tight by the singing water A hug that says, “Soon, all of this will be yours, my child.”
Images are of the River Tweed in November 2022, taken from the Scots side. I wrote the first draft of the poem in 2020, after watching fish in the River Windrush, and polished it just now after seeing the mighty Tweed with its swimming swans and leaping salmon.
Words, words, words 