The Spring

he practices casting words as feet
that will adhere
to meaning
catch a trout
catch the fame he seeks

 

what he writes now
he hopes will stay
if only clinging like lichen to rock
by that spring where she bent to hold a pail
right beside a blackbird’s nest
the blackbird did not move

 

there are many springs but none like Brard
not far from Merwin's place unless maybe Roughside's
an outcrop piercing the moor in the sloping hillside
above a stream they called the Cleugh which rhymes with rough
where grass grew thickly and curlews cried 

 

each step down the hillside strengthened entrancement
for a gaunt tree stood alone among deer cropped grasses
clansmen raiding the Bower assembled here
to besiege Dally Castle in the stone tower days 
and spirits haunt that place. 


Richard M Russell (C) Dick Russell
                      August 2022