Tollymore Forest Park

by Alan Gillis

Grumbulous midges would hover
still in a galaxy of minor rage
by the riverside, the river relaxed
from a distance but swift–raced,

burble–flowed in glut–streams of torrent
when I’d draw near to its peacock
tail of reflection, sauntering through
conifer shadow and butterstreaks

of light as if suspended in time, though
all swayed in motion, and now there’s no way
of nesting back in that bark–must and water–
light deep in the ferns, that rushed and slow flow.