POETRY | NATURE | REFLECTIONS

River Roe

She was born on the cold slopes of Sperrin Filled with peaty water from heather covered hills but gathered enough strength on the journey, to cut her way into the gleaming gorge of mica schist.

She stops in sight of sea and washes her stream of all the men who atoned for their sins in her.

Her large eyes fill with water, she looks over her shoulder before ebbing away into September.

She carved her way herself out of hearts of stone that harnessed her energy for centuries.

Pressed between her hills she keeps hives of relinquished mills and broken machinery from failed endeavors.

Little birds nestle in her canopy of springleaves, but nightshade grips her feet like shackles. with brunette bangles in her hair, arms soft as petal and cold as stone, she is all the sirens bathing in her water and the Mosque above:

the Faith and the Deviant, the Passion and the Poison, the Voice of Reason and the Abandon.