In stream
(after Zaffar Kunial’s ‘This in Land’)
That way a river crimps eddies in its skin
is this matter of my unreliable breath.
That way leaves spin, pause, spin on again
is as much constancy as we should expect.
That way an eel suspended in the secret murk
is at once aboriginal and visitant.
That way a wedged log thwarts the flow
is how no and yes are counterpart.
That way the pine roots deep beneath the river
is how all things become, intertwined.
Cindy Botha lives in New Zealand. Her poems appear in magazines and anthologies in NZ, Australia, the UK and USA.