you owe me

as it happens it happens I forgot myself,
what I knew of distance receding away
into more of itself to Cyprus and Woolwich.
Some feeling is too much already I think,

so much we can feel belongs to the gods
who are sulking, thin water our prayers
through their hands, what with the river's tale
and my shadow there small by my father's.

So much for childhood: grey boulders
the dale's length, the rainbow's high arc
and the river's fast speech that runs
through my life now. That was no dream

Copyright © 2002 Ken Smith All rights reserved
from Shed
Bloodaxe Books / Dufour Editions
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission