Writer and musician
My love is like
My love is like the fish beneath the stream.
Seek her sidelong from the bank
And the surface turns to steel, shielding her.
Stand on the bridge whose stanchions
In high water, weir-like,
Pull and part the current
As if it were a woman’s hair,
And she is gone, leaving only
The ribbon to look upon
As it winds off to the river.
Wait until a little nearer the night
When the light has slightly fewer tricks,
Or later still, when your eyes have acclimatised.
You come so close you see and hear
Nothing but her. The dark brook loses its music.
You lie alongside to prevent her vanishing.
You board her dreams. The world above is gone.
There’s nothing now but breaking subterranean bounds
And moving down to the greater grounds
In deep-running seams of migrant silver.
From Unmade Roads, Poems by Alan Franks, £5.99 published by Muswell Press
This poem was published in The Times on 10 September 2010.
This is the link (subscription needed)
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/arts/books/extracts/article2720634.ece