What The Rivers Bring Poem by elizabeth jardine godwin

One evening, when sun and moon ran the river
on silver and copper wires
a salmon leapt

.Made of coloured earth and milk-water
he seemed to hang, air borne
in a suit of rosefire and pearl ash

a flame in burning shadows.

from a whirl of ochre water. The scales of one flank
bespoke sunlight
the other urgent with the moon.

And I thought of how
we wait in caverns
sunlit and dark

till, touched by unlikely tributaries
we shed half our skin, our dark costumes
and robed in the enfolding sun

our shimmering selves leap out
and head, at least for now


upstream.