Recollections From the Golden Cree I
I know of a river of more than average
Sorts...
Meandering, when not dallying to maunder,
Between many differing contours
And unruly contorts;
Where a privileged youth once
Happily sought -
Pursuing about his passions
In the traditional methods
By which his better elders
Did most insist he was thereby taught.
Reinforced throughout with an almost
Religious zeal;
Enabled with spliced cane rod
Completed by ratchet-and-pawl type reel:
Whereon was wound the silken line;
About his slender frame hung
A wicker creel -
Contained therein beer and victuals
For a hearty meal!
Glad all the day long was he
To present his barbed lure,
Which, seldom, if ever, came to nought,
Within the purest sporting etiquettes,
That, loaded with conventional insistence,
Were so obligingly fraught;
And without transgression of strictest
Piscatorial code -
Perish the blinking thought!!
Thus, whereby to ensure, his wily quarry
Were gamefully hooked, played,
And lawfully caught.
June lit days skipped like lambs across
Her sheep cropped lawns;
Far distant out of sight Skylarks
Singing trilly inside blue dusks and above
Thinning strands of wispy-pink dawns.
The whauping Curlew warbled when stalling
In drifting flight;
Burbling pied Oyster-Catchers,
Resplendent in orange gaiters,
Piping vociferously along corridors
Of shortest bat-flittering night...
And high up buffeted by the sharp
Breath of the bare escarpment,
Where soon the all-enveloping northern
Snows
Will cover like an old maids shawl,
The red beaked Chough and
Double white striped Meadow pipit,
Fluttering above hidden creases,
Pause to quickly fall...
Into folds of Vested garments:
Imperial purples and rich magentas
Thrown as if discarded upon an
Emperors mosaic floor;
Lavish carpets of Royal claret
Rolled out across the deeply-brimming
Horizons of the wine-red moor.
For how well I can still bring to mind
That lingering warmth
Of temperate Octobers sprinkled haze;
Loitering aimlessly to slowly dissipate
And idly laze
Beneath the smouldering hills...
Whose majestic heathers torched and
Set alight,
Now unrestrained, so fiercely blazed!
Soon the antlered sounds of pointed bone
Will clash furiously together, here, on this
The Rut's inflamed stage;
Whilst over it all -
Muted bellows, resonating, as enraged
Rags engage desperately in their deadly
Brawl!
Following inside the rutted lane,
Busy with the grey flutter of the
Wheatears wings,
Besides seasonal disrepair
Often to be found many a fellow
Employed for a variety of thankless sins;
Who, in abject despair, found good reasons
To ruefully atone...
When patching up the openings of
Inexplicable holes
Fashioned from toppled piles of lichen
Spotted stone.
Copyright © John Fleming | Year Posted 2016
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