Where Are You William

William walks the Thameside path to skirt the Whitecross public house beside the bankside boats some covered by their winter canvas coats and strewn with planks and dollies some sitting on their two-wheel trolleys waiting for the spring to feel Thames warmer water on their keel. Facing winter's waining sun, eyes shielded to the glory of this scene: the river's mirror-flow reflecting all this stream of light from noon's fast fading glow soon yielding to the cold-moon night, William's eyes cast low. He stoops beside a rowing shell within an upright skiff both scattered with a jumbled mess of river planks and sundry bits of winch and empty cans, discarded bits of litter from a passer's office lunch, all thrown and messed within the hull. Reaching down to rummage litter in this boat all damp and drowned within its rain-filled sump, William spies a bottle, which, lifted to the sun before his squinting eyes, reveals a drop or two of amber dregs, like gold from silty river beds made sun-bright treasure to his eyes soon tucked beneath his coat. In shame he takes his find and makes the lesser path behind the arch where shadows grant his hope of drawing this to thirsty throat and drowning out his troubled mind. With bottle held in trembling grip Will tilts this nectar to his lips, with care to spill none to the ground til no more drops are found and then he slings this empty vessel to make an echoed river splash beneath the bridge's shadowed arch to sink and meet more river trash. And never more was glory marred than by man's hopeless misery, Nor all God's good so greatly barred as by Will's shamed iniquity.