UNDINES

Soul Of The Earth

UNDINES

Our Little River’s buried alive

by bulldozers cornering their prey,

this source we guarded, are still

tied to beyond human memory. It

strung our beads with a thousand bubbles,

floated us over sands and troubles,

laved our long arms as we gathered willows,

made and remade by the river’s wiles.

Passerby, you are more solid, more transitory.

Now we wander farmer’s fields,

fingering damp spots, fretting over

muddy places near the culverts

it was forced into. Metal haters,

posing as a thistle bush, or briars,

we’ll snag your pant legs. Passerby,

in your pale, weedy garments,

can’t you see us churning the air,

as if it were water into an addled haze?