GENTLE DRAUGHT FOR LIFE

the holiness of the stream

pebbles sparkling beneath ripples

my thirst too grand to need to be led

the cold water rises to my parched brain

tries to bring me back among the living and the quenched

the day is windless
              the stream sparkled foamless and glittering

a murmuration of starlings blackened the sky

before vanishing into the half-stripped woodlands

and me
       part here       part there

touch my lips to the fast moving stream

the wind having departed with my body

my head at the water

trying to drink back my self