Poetry by Angela Patten
Here I am on the river again
gliding my kayak past a row of turtles
their shells gleaming in the sun
like freshly washed dinner plates.
I turn to see a muskrat’s muzzle
parting the water like a butterknife.
Around a bend a heron stands
knee-deep in weeds and water
like my father in black rubber
boots fishing on the River Boyne.
Although he loved rivers and streams,
he hated the sea with equal fervor
distrusting its relentless waves
its monotonous unremitting motion.
But back to the heron and the mystery
of that bony beak, that frozen pose
that alien cranium with its opaque eye
the shriek and fluster of its wings
as it takes off creaking into the air
like an early flying machine.
Unlike my father, I loved the sea
and the cold consecration of salt water.
But now I am a convert to the river
that flows through marsh and mudflat
town and village, state and country
the wayward weather its only god.
Angela Patten is an award-winning Irish poet, author of five poetry collections and a prose memoir. Her work has appeared in literary journals and magazines in the U.S. and abroad. A native of Dublin, Ireland, she is a Senior Lecturer Emerita in English at the University of Vermont. Read more at www.carraigbinn.com.
