Across the lacquered varnish

of the river, rain comes dimpling

the surface with a sibilant hiss

like the sound of fat sizzling.
Old boulders have come down

hill to examine their own unshaven

reflections in the mirror, come down

from the places they left a millennium 
ago, a moment in the ongoing stillness

of boulders. Other rocks have also

escaped their portraits. In contrast

the fleeting water follows 
its memory embedded in the river.

The life of shifting sand,

submerged tree trunks which never

stay still for long, these turn and 
lean to the current’s bidding, all

with a singular purpose. This far

upstream where salt water stalls

and dilutes itself with air,
small whirlpools play about

the snags beneath. The broken

illusion of tranquility merging to the right

like a long, sweeping brush stroke
gliding to its vanishing point

where rare stuttering frogs read the news

to each other, and the water’s faint

gossip around the bend continues
on beneath a distant bridge. Soon it will

dissolve with time, nudging downstream

to the coast. Too late for the speed

boats who, tomorrow, will return 
and cross the river Styx like a rip

down the centre of the canvas, stitched

up with mud and melting spit

giving form to a great amnesia.
The ripples will soon subside,

the boulders quietly exhale

as the river accepts the inward tide

of a world reverting to scale.