Songs By The River. Poem by fon tuma

The river sang its way towards its mother,
- the river that would become a road.
its muddy banks holding the prints, signatures
written in the pen of hooves,
footprints by the march of untame cows,
of pregnant buffalo flanked by bulls.
- The river found its way,
as the prince on the riverbed sang
in sleep; soothing the rushing foam
which whispered histories of bedrock,
and strange birds golden in glitters
descended from the sun.
The indigo flowers decorating its passing banks
- rare in wisdom
nod in quiet acquiescence of the music,
the music from a sleeping mouth.
they listen too to the water's lore of beaten frontiers
lands where the sun meets the water,
places where not forest, but unicorn govern.
- and beneath the prince awake and dead,
pupil to the symphony of the river
hears too of hungry sands and talk of war.
Then suddenly from the banks rise,
some fearsome beast growing from the earth
feeding on the fantastic light,
the swaying trees and the bird's eggs.
seven heads producing dark smoke
rushing from its stirred nostrils,
seven heads wear seven crowns
supporting seven stars and a spinning globe,
each unbalanced on their axis,
churning the small place of land,
into the blue boiling seas.
Growling in strength the beast grows,
and still the indigo ink of flowers nod.

There was once a quarry the river says,
from where stones were gathered,
taken to the assembling site,
stones to build the road -
the highway, heir to the river. -
The giant beast, Atlantian in size
imitates Atlas to the skies.
- Its beard, snow-capped peaks of white
breathing tropical frost from its height
its roar drowning the sublime
the music of the prince, the wisdom of the river.
- Then ten river maidens appear,
laughing gaily in play, jump on the dancing stream
gossiping, exchanging new news,
new eccentrics from the village of artists,
speaking of the sculpture,
moulded by royal hands, sculpted
by the princess aloof to singular suitors.
The flowers nod as the musical prince
slowly stops:
'Where is this tribe of artists? ' he asks
when the maiden nymphs evaporate,
'Who is this sorely sought sculptor? '
His creased brow of furrows comes alight
his right hand carrying the staff -
the royal scepter of his laughing father rises -
to the throne his fast legs go,
to the head that knows all mysteries.
'For she will be my queen,
she who stands aloof and alone'.
And again, the voiceless flowers nod.

In the firmaments, heavenly hosts heed,
the rising beast fuming in grow,
'Who will arrest this animal Babel? '
the bored lord on the throne thinks,
a mighty Samson wrapped in silky white
radiant in oiled locks prostrates,
'I will go'.
a donkey's jaw-bone in one mighty hand,
he descends from the constellations
upon a cloud; four fiery horses,
the White, the Red, the Black and the Green.
As the indigo flowers nod praise.

this is a piece of disjointed stories sewn together. you be a judge of how good the tailoring is...