—"Every day, writing. No matter how bad.
               Something will come."—Sylvia Plath

 

Both my feet lodge at the river edge.
Water eddies around them.
There’s a sinking into the soft mud.

Catfish—the colloquial hornpout—
circle in the stir.
No return to prior stillness.

A water-soaked deadhead log
of old-growth timber, full of memories,
floats in the deeper channel

—vertical—as a human would tread
water. A poet, I could call to it,
ask its situation, destination,

its ancestry, its source,
Have you come from very far?
But it follows its instinct—
             downstream, and getting away.

If left to mire, the muck will cover
me ankle deep. The current’s swift.
The snowmelt cold.

And the watercourse pulses
like ragtime syncopation. Possibility.
I beg the slippery hornpout, Sting.

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D. Walsh Gilbert is a dual citizen of the United States and Ireland. She lives in Farmington, Connecticut on a former sheep farm at the foot of Talcott Mountain near the watershed of the Farmington River, previously the homelands of the Tunxis and Sukiaugk peoples. Gilbert has written seven poetry collections, most recently, Finches in Kilmainham (Grayson Books) and forthcoming, Bleat & Prattle (Clare Songbirds Publishing House). Her poems appear widely in print and online poetry journals. She serves on the board of the Riverwood Poetry Series and as co-editor of Connecticut River Review published by the Connecticut Poetry Society.

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