Melt-water Currents

Collected 108 primrose blossoms

and three handful of the humble coltsfoot

for the medicine chest this morning

but before it got all too sweet and cute

or tends to get...between these lines

I went for a shit in the woods

That was up Sihl river

a body of water that I owe quite a lot

a lot more than the few wee trout

he offered me when we acted casually

Ten minutes uphill through low birch and

light-green poplar spring foliage I passed

the barbwire-fence of the penitentiary

a long-term prison in the middle of nowhere

There are people on this Earth that never ever

dropped a shit in the woods in their life

and there are those that never ever

saw a porcelain loo up close

There are people that never ever

spent a night on the ground in their life

in the lap and bosom of Mother Earth

and there are those who never ever

spent a night in a timbered bed

on soft white linen under fluffy covers

There are people in that jail

ten minutes walk uphill

living as close to the river as to the moon

that never dipped a toe

into his mountain sourced waters that

never made a benign campfire by his side that

never sent a wish, an old curse, a forgiveness

down his soft melt-water currents

Because of something they have done

because of something that was done to them

because of something we have done