Poem of the Day: Vernon Watkins

Waterfalls

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. 

--Vernon Watkins