The idea for this poem came to be one hot dry day in August as I was strimming in the garden of the house we once owned in the Deux Sevres, France. It was a lovely place caught between the Chemin de Ricou to the west and the Sevre Niortaise to the east. I do not normally write to a form and I cannot remember why I chose to write Between River and Road as a Sestina however the repetition of the scheme does frame this word painting and gives it depth and I am pleased with the result. It is me reading and the music, Every Moment, is composed and played by Megan Wofford. The Voice Portrait is by Giovanna Iorio. The feature image above is of the Garden I was strimming with the river on the right.
Between River and Road
Between River and Road
The tiny, two stroke engine, noisy
behind me, is not a long tailed
Florida outboard driving
through swamps and summer
clouds of mosquitoes, skimming over
alligators, long snakes, water.
It whirls though weeds not water.
The strimmer stretched before me, noisy,
brushwood cutter circling over
limestone boulders, plump-tailed
lizards chased from the summer
sun to hide beneath rocks.
Me driving through head-high nettles
driving through thistles, heavy grass
not the everglades and all-year summer but
dusty mid-year sun, noisy
chasing snakes and long tailed
damsels as they escape around and over
the river. Snakes sliding over
mud, startling, blue-glass wings driving in
the air. Brilliant, short-tailed King Fisher
electric-flashing the water shedding
insect-sparks ignoring noisy me strimming
in pollen clouds of summer.
The bank is cluttered with Hornbeam, summer
fruiting Elder. Brambles tangling branches over
the Sevre Niortaise opposite the water-noisy
weir with the river tumbling, splashing, driving
from me outer-world sounds. Water
in the mill cut quiet with lazy-tailed
fish somnambulant amongst green-tailed
lilies. Bright yellow, shining, summer
flowers, clusters of petals on water
painted green with leaves daubed over
the beetle dimpled surface. Cars driving
by see none of this; just me, noisy.
The driving rain and summer sun,
ever-noisy insects, long fish, short-tailed birds
are always here, over land, in water; always.
© Anthony Fisher September 2006