A river running over rocks; a dipper
Dives in froth and locks
Her beak in flesh and shocks
The silver wriggler through the rocks.

              ***

This is history, farther back than the fort
the romans built. This is mystery
such that a roman soldier

might have seen but even older
than this at the river’s making
water kissed the scattered boulders

the ice tore from a solid mountain
no human soldier ever saw.
Against this the house was born

yesterday, though the same spawn
of stones built it. Inhabited rooms
looked out on blooms, their choice

beauty brought to life on acid acres
by certain men, their duty known:
order the land that rots their bones.

             ***

Picnic tables stand between the birches,
A steel bridge spans these leaden waters
Spent riches from mines leaving us only
The haunted banks of rhododendron bushes.