Joe's Brook Poem by Keith Shorrocks Johnson

The lonely boy pulls on his rubber boots
And calls the dog from her sacking bed
In the small shed where the sticks are chopped.

He is off again across the fields to the brook
Past the pit with its bulrushes and white ducks
Down to the willows and the farm bridge.

There he will build causeways and dams
Endlessly prising broken bricks from the mud
Shaping and retaining structures to his daydreams.

Somewhere at a clearer stream - perhaps in Sussex -
A more famous future poet is putting in place moments
Carrying similar hidden watermarks of significance.