The Brook (Poetry)

Brown and slow, it threads its way
between plump, flower-cushioned banks —
an unobtrusive, living thing
of fluid skin and swaying flanks.

Easily, it slides along
the sun-warmed comfort of its bed,
lolls its weed-rough, tawny tongue
and licks the grasses at its edge

where shallows, pebble-flecked, wave thin
green minnow-fingers — shoaling, keen
to spawn, and males sport pink-paired fins,
rose-flush of underbellies gleam

and flicker from the glassy maw
of this, their elemental host
whose watery and ancient claw
once gouged a pathway to the coast.

Now, drugged with heat, the brook secludes
each shadow-dappled, pulsing form —
it gathers fish and insect broods
and, like a mother, keeps them warm.