Water

Given time, they say,
Water can wear down mountains,
Give it time, goes the cry,
And it can rub the Queen’s face off a penny.
Up in the highlands
The fog clung in marbles to the thick weave
Of my sweater
As we hiked through gorse
Knee-tall
Towards the lofty source pools,
Cool mountain springs
That bled clear juice
Down rocky courses
Streaked white with lime.
We sat on a flat table of rock,
Ate crab-salmon sandwiches
And talked about your uncle’s impending divorce,
About the odd vertigo of contrails,
The dun outline of a distant sleeping horse.
After lunch we wrote poems
Then folded the pages into paper yachts.
Mine read:
I cut open a tree and there are wires inside.
I have seen candles grow like fungus overnight.
If you are reading this
Know that I am often cruel
In my head
But lack the guts to be nasty to strangers.
I knelt by the stream and released it,
Watched as it rounded the swerve of the bank,
Struck a stray branch and sank.