I began this pome a while ago, wandering around in a wood. I think the spirit of the Romantics had taken me over that day. I was overdressed, full hair and make-up, ‘sensible’* in the sense in which Jane Austen used that word; bemused families passed as I stood engrossed on the riverbank, immersed in listening to the water and scribbling free-form lines of verse. I enjoyed it very much. I think the mood comes across: it’s some deep Zen Taoist hippy stuff.
At the place that was our last place
I went to visit my river; it had been a year
This spring she is full of pace, of spirit
Rushing on towards the future
‘Come, follow me!’, she sings
I hug the banks and follow, keen to see
What she will do next
As we slip and slide and run along together
She grows in glittering confidence and majesty
She makes me feel like: yes, you can weather storms
Yes, you can absorb floods
Yes, life is possible, a new life
Here is all the energy that you will ever need
Ever changing but always the same
Carrying me away, carrying all before her
Flowing flooding fleeting on she runs
‘Til I find myself at a confluence,
Surrounded on all sides by streams and culverts
Joyfully her sisters run to meet her
Singing their journeys in their various voices
The water leaps, it’s thrown into the air
It falls upon the earth, the banks
But it knows its way home, it trusts its journey
All journeys lead to the same place, after all
Why should I fear, any more than the spray of the waterfall does,
That I will lose my way?
In quieter moments, she gets deep
By the bends of the riverbed
She slows down, murmurs
Thoughts swirl like bubbles within her
The only clues to her inner life
The ever-changing patterns on her surface
Presented with an obstacle, a drama
She just says, ‘Is that so?’
She flows around, over, under and through
She changes shape, speed, pitch as required
But she is always the same river
And yes, it’s very different here this year
Things have moved; things have gone
Here, a beach where she rested in years past
Has been swept away or submerged
And there, she needed propping up,
Supporting by her kindly friends
It all looks changed and new, but it will be okay
She is determined. She is choiceless
She deals. She never stops
The river is still teaching me how to live
Video at: https://youtu.be/3-OJgM4Nq-E

*sensibility
capacity for sensation or feeling; responsiveness or susceptibility to sensory stimuli.
Lovely Fabulous inspiring!!! Thanks for the uplift!!!!
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