River wandering

by Bridget Khursheed

It’s the shape of leaves that frees me
on this walk or the shape of trees
and the plod down the path
from hotel to riverbank between the yews.

Years ago this was a jaunt
for spa goers: the salt and mud hydration 
all washed away by the river cobbles.
Treatments while couples flirt together.

Gents look at absent salmon.
The enthused medic at the forefront
of watery healing stares at ripples
and their birch branch frame

infinitely re-picturing.
Meanwhile I look at the toffee-coloured 
highland bull as he runs away again.
The hedges need a clip. Dogs chase sheep.

An egret every month of Sundays
flies upstream above a slosh of wild geraniums
past the bottle bridge’s gun emplacement
and the water that returns us to us.