River Wye Weekend Poem by Dave Lewis

You came in a beat up old blue Landie

with tales of sleeping giants on your lips.

It was your first night in the cottage

when the Wye was skipping over stones,

dividing the spiked water milfoil

with sacred Pumlumon Fawr sunk into the sunset.



We watched a heron draggle

in and out of the water crowfoot beds,

trusted we'd see muntjac or wild boar tomorrow.

Look, there's a kingfisher, jewelled above the otter's holt

and later a dipper, teeter-totter,

near the yellow-cress.



Watching frogs collared by ripples

we wish for a grass snake or polecat.

Skipping past horse-tail and great willowherb

you trace the sand martins with your miniature fingertips

while I collect peppery chives from the bedrock

and turn my once carefree soul to my stomach.