Snow On The River (Vi) Poem by jim hogg

It only takes a little step
to alter everything.
A song we might have made our own,
a song we'll never sing;

or worse perhaps, through simple fear,
a step I wouldn't take,
and didn't realise
that I would ever have to pay.

Repression seems to be my thing;
I've done it all my life.
The reasons why don't matter here
(they'd take too many lines!)

Suffice to say the more I've felt,
the more I've locked away,
but all of it escapes in time
and heads straight for the page.

And this specific storyline's
a classic of its sort.
The first time I caught sight of you
I knew that I was lost

I knew that I would lose myself
or you'd be out of reach,
and riding to the rescue
came my inhibitions team.

They kept my thoughts and all my urges
strictly above board,
but not quite strict enough to stop
the feelings I ignored.

I wasn't brave enough to ask,
and then the chance was gone.
My very close acquaintance
took your arm and then moved on.

And while I dilly-dallied some,
it happened once again;
another close associate
came swooping swiftly in;

which meant of course that we'd have time
to test those walls I'd raised.
Instead of falling deeper in,
I should have stayed away.

And thus to these incessant words,
this frenzied full court press.
So far I've underdone the praise,
for mostly, more is less:

your body made me tremble
and your beauty left me weak,
so weak it seems I found it hard
to simply just be me.

In all of that the fault was mine;
I should have made that clear.
I chose a path that made no sense
unless there's sense in fear.

And truth to tell, the act of choice
is hardly choice at all:
we build and burrow, count and care,
convinced we call the shots,

but ants, if given speech would crow,
like us, they're got it down.
The only difference they'd concede
is we've got bigger towns.

Now maybe I should mention next
how this all came to pass,
by which I mean repression
chose to bite me on the ass.