WATERFALLS
byVernon Watkins
Always in that valley in Wales I hear the noise
Of waters falling.
There is a clump of trees
We climbed for nuts; and high in the trees the boys
Lost in the rookery’s cries
Would cross, and branches cracking under their knees
Would break, and make in the winter wood new gaps.
The leafmould covering the ground was almost black,
But speckled and striped were the nuts we threw
in our caps,
Milked from split shells and cups,
Secret as chestnuts when they are tipped from a sack,
Glossy and new.
Always in that valley in Wales
I hear that sound, those voices. They keep fresh
What ripens, falls, drops into darkness, fails,
Gone when dawn shines on scales,
And glides from village memory, slips through
the mesh,
And is not, when we come again.
I look:
Voices are under the bridge, and that voice calls,
Now late, and answers;
then, as the light twigs break
Back, there is only the brook reminding the stones
where, under a breath, it falls.
byVernon Watkins
Always in that valley in Wales I hear the noise
Of waters falling.
There is a clump of trees
We climbed for nuts; and high in the trees the boys
Lost in the rookery’s cries
Would cross, and branches cracking under their knees
Would break, and make in the winter wood new gaps.
The leafmould covering the ground was almost black,
But speckled and striped were the nuts we threw
in our caps,
Milked from split shells and cups,
Secret as chestnuts when they are tipped from a sack,
Glossy and new.
Always in that valley in Wales
I hear that sound, those voices. They keep fresh
What ripens, falls, drops into darkness, fails,
Gone when dawn shines on scales,
And glides from village memory, slips through
the mesh,
And is not, when we come again.
I look:
Voices are under the bridge, and that voice calls,
Now late, and answers;
then, as the light twigs break
Back, there is only the brook reminding the stones
where, under a breath, it falls.
