History

The river Mole, mouthing into Thames
at Hampton Court, velvet snouted
and channelling forward like its namesake -
We mark December's chiselled day
in search of bin-lid bream or barrelled carp.
We are tributaries too, feeder flows
in wider history: anomalous at times
like yonder palace's festive ice-rink
in forecourt stand, lighting up
the fading day. Other winters
come to mind: the river Ness
in iron grip, with icicles like stalactites
in frozen waterfalls, and peat-brown
trout holed-up in plunge pools.
We chilled like left-out bottles
under pallid pink skies,
used hay-bales as wind-breaks
and jumped to see your father's car
returning grouse-small down the hill
to take us over Burntollet bridge
where Ness met Faughan at swirling junction.
Not 1969, when Burntollet heaved
with agitated marchers' Civil Rights;
but our homeward drive in after-years
concentric to the wider spheres
of rivering history. I think of
my father wiring electric meters
in Beresford Ash's big house
where rhododendrons slope down
to Faughan banks, our native river
seeping still through secret heart;
or the duke of Abercorn re-directing
us from the doors of Baronscourt
where pike, like crocodiles, glide
in lake Catherine's ominous reed-fringe.
Though I foot-print royal boroughs
in Windsor, Eton, Runnymede,
I think in bounds of private years -
the river-glint of common days.