The earth warm against my back and legs
The river at my feet
Swollen

Milky, metallic
The colour, density
Of mercury

Swift, flat calm, urgent
Now
The flood that grazed our comfort
A few furious nights ago
Draws back to an accustomed course
Gouged out in those good old days
Before the engineers' ambition
And gelignite loudly proclaimed
That this wild and hungry thing
Had at last been tamed

The salmon, sensing that the past returns,
Claim the river as their own again
Fling, flip and tumble, dazzling numbering
Rings in the water
From here to the bridge

In the holding hollow
Odours of wrack.
Hidden from the Speyside walkers
Following their routes plotted on maps
All contingencies covered in neat back packs
Overnight stops long planned and booked
Unseen, overlooked
I bow my head as the river takes me
Back to the rhythms in Nina's flow
As she describes the changes her body has made
To curl round the seed of the wrong decade
Which unfettered passion, flooding, has laid
Deep in the hollow where rivers begin