Light On Water

Noon. Low tide. Plovers and herons work
makeshift pools. The cloud-steeped channel curves to
a flea-pit of ripples where it rejoins
the body of the river, cadenced between
flat gleam and roughcut blue: as if a shoal
were feeding on handfuls of silver crumbs.
At the mouth, migrations of crystal birds
across a starred night sky — through which I view
mesa and mountain range in miniature.
Gold eels twitch on the surface, send storm-news
skittering over ridged spines — sand dreaming of rock —
as wreaths of fern, vermilion or dun,
and ragged green leaves, coil and uncurl in
the decanted light of a bottle garden.