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Poems With Water Features- Alan j Wright

 This week, inspired by a new song from The National's lead singer, Matt Berninger, 'Ask For Water,'  I went in search of water themed poems in my poetry vault. I wasn't exactly sure what I would find, not a deluge,  but I was curious.

Here is some of what I found...







My Dad Was a Rain-man

I stood beside my dad one summer afternoon

Under the eaves of the back veranda

As indigo clouds

Blotted out the summer sky

And threw our world into warm shadows

Dad broke the silence

Can you smell the rain?  

-It’s only minutes away


So we waited

Staring skyward

Listening to low rumbling of distant thunder

As lightning scratched the sky

And the clouds sprung leaks

Soon large, heavy droplets

Slapped the ground

Before a downpour drenched the day

Stripping dust from the air around us

Making everything fireproof 


He knew rain my Dad

He could read the sky

I saw him do it once.

Alan j Wright








Time Beside the Sassafras Creek


Occasionally
I stand still
Beside the muddy bank of the creek
Listening to the talking water,
White crested and sparkling
As it tumbles over rounded rocks.
Fish slowly reveal themselves
In the shallows
Swimming in silent circles
Resisting the current
Motionless for a time
Suspended in the flow
As if under a spell.
Suddenly
They are gone
In fish flashes
Under logs and fallen branches
Sheltering shyly.
The show is over
The light diffuses
Like powder in water.
I move away
My viewing over
For now.

Alan j Wright










At The River

Sky blue curves
Ripple on the surface
Of the gently glugging stream
As it slides over stones.

The thin shadows of winter trees
Gently fall across
The moving water’s surface
undulating like plucked strings

The melody of the moving stream
Sounding sweeter
And so suitably swelled.
The water slightly silvered.

Alan j Wright








Upon Fisherman’s Beach

Soft blue is the ocean
Sun kissed wheat, the sand
The tide is low at morning 
Waves ripple, gently fanned

Seaweed strands are drifting
The shoreline dressed in foam
Boats at the anchor bobbing
Fish in the shallows roam

Onward flows the ocean
Its waters dark and still
Beyond the far horizon
Large whales seek the krill

A figure at the shoreline stands
The sandcastles wash away
And silence claims the bay. 
The day ebbs towards the sunset

Alan j Wright

It is Poetry Friday and our genial host this time is Tricia Stohr-Hunt. Tricia has written a poem from her dog's perspective under the banner, it was all my fault. To discover more, you'll need to visit.





Comments

  1. That first poem, that lovely memory of your dad, is wonderful, Alan!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, Laura. That first poem is based on an enduring memory, so it pleases me immensely to think someone whose opinion I value, appreciates it.

      Delete

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