Thursday, December 19, 2024

Mountain Brook (John Singer Sargent), Sonnet #626.5

 

















The brook ran through high mountain pasture

From failing glacier to pool to pond to lake,

Between banks limned with moss and aster

Rooted in cascades of shattered igneous flake.

I straddled the water running slow over stones,

My boots precariously gripping boulders

The water’s rilling shaped into hipbones.

Further up hunched matching shoulders.

I found a head and rolled it in, midstream.

The shallow, muttering water, unperturbed,

Flowed around and on like a vanquished dream.

Provoked, I left not a rock undisturbed

And rolled them in -- the addled stream burst

Banks and drowned the mountain pasture’s thirst.

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