What was it?
What was it,
that face
the airmen saw one dawn flight
at the height of war,
solemn in the water’s glass
far below,
framed by reed and alder carrs,
wraithed in mist at first light?
Was its mouth
the wake an otter cut?
Did perch and pike
break surface and make
the round pupils of its sight?
Did a wind from the south
stipple and lap and lace
little waves into
the sleek oval of its face?
Did these things meet
in that split moment
seen
by those airmen from their cockpits
in dawn light of
nineteen sixteen?
Or was it the face of
an old god
of death and birth
of mud and bud and wood,
of sap and bone and blood
keeping its long measure
of the night
and the waxing light?
Was it already
in the sodden ground
when diggers came
with long spades
and found the peat?
Did it flinch when they cut skin to bone
and took the black gold of its flesh
to heat ten thousand homes?
Did it bask in the glory years
when each thought
was water crystal clear
and countless eels writhed
in its deeps
and stickleback, rudd, tench
darted, raced
and were the consciousness
behind its face;
when bittern, heron,
goose, kingfisher and swan
were its shifting mood,
its speech and song.
Where did it go, that face,
in the dark days
when toxic seep took hold
and algae clouded every thought
and life irrepressible
grew weary and old
and the eels disappeared?
Can we see it again…
…today…
as the waters clear
and the old denizens
of broad and fen
cautiously
come close again?
And where will it be
if glaciers melt and seas rise
and salt streams overwhelm the fresh
and sand is carried by the tide
and all this green and tender land
is melted into estuary?
But let’s not talk of what has been,
what’s yet to come.
Look again… now.
The Broad is always now,
and its face
as ancient and young
as skull and bone
beneath your skin.
Was the face the airmen saw
that time
their own?
Lean over, look down,
is it yours and mine?