The Woodland Brook - Poetry from Boreegard

WOODLAND BROOK

I am obsessed by Woodland Brook

There’s early spring, when the water runs
Fast and blue and the shadblow blooms pure white
All along the valley corridor.
My father directs me to use a quill Gordon.
Iron Fraudator hatches while the last
Thin snow falls.

Grandpa was right.
Life is not all skittles and beer.
Even on a bright Memorial Day,
You can find evidence of Winter’s
Harsh directive.

The stench of rotting flesh hits us
Like a wall, as we crash through
Sinewy brush, lugging heavy buckets
Of stocking trout.

The doe’s body was hidden in deep water,
Until this sudden dry spell.
Lately she has become the uncontested property,
Of recalcitrant valley dogs and buzzflies.

In summer the brook dwindles to a crystalline trickle,
Under a demanding sun, grasshoppers bask
In the hot dust and fiddle beneath the black-eyed suzies.

Cautious trout maintain themselves in the shade
Of willows and smooth children’s jumping rocks.
They wait for nighttime when they will fill with
Brash courage and feed in a frenzy on top.

Take your rod and visit them then.
To Hell with the cocktail hour.

Cold wet autumn, when the slate drakes hatch
Leaving their skinhusks behind like gossamer souvenirs of their
First life.
As May flies, they flutter off through the rain
To begin their brief climactic last-life.

Boreegard
May 15, 2012