My Darling

[Andrew]

My Darling
©AndrewHull,2007

My Darling wends her way across the scorching Western Plains
She fills the narrow channel and spills into shallow drains
And runs within the country like the blood within its veins
And life follows with her where she goes
My Darling carries far more than the water she contains
And lives beyond the realm of what she shows
For water’s not the only thing that falls in summer rains
And not the only thing that ebbs and flows

My Darling keeps the secrets of the years spent at her side
My wishes found a place within her reaches to reside
The tears I shed she gently swept, and laughter multiplied
The fears that she harbours to this day
My Darling keeps a million other’s stories deep inside
And secrets that I know she won’t betray
She holds the treasure of my dreams whenever I confide
And bourdons which she washes well away

My Darling struggles bravely with the changes she has faced
The pieces taken from her that can never be replaced
The memories of landscapes now centuries erased
The efforts that are made to bend her will
My Darling bides her time within the track that she has traced
With vows that she has promised to fulfil
She keeps the pride of people disenfranchised and disgraced
While changing plans are forced upon her still

My Darling shrinks within herself and bakes beneath the sun
Responding to demands and to the damage that’s been done
She sleeps beneath the sand and refuses now to run
Her mighty frame a shallow shrunken creek
My Darling waits until the ties that bind become undone
To prove she is not pitiful and meek
She sleeps until the other cycle of her life’s begun
To show that we must listen to her speak

My Darling like an army, swells and bursts across the land
And miles of open country now falls under her command
Defying opposition as her tributaries expand
She turns the shrunken wetlands into seas
My Darling carries death along with life within her hand
And occupies the flooded plains with ease
She offers up an argument that all can understand
And the strongest of will cannot appease

My Darling now withdraws and returns back to her source
She nestles in her bed without regret, without remorse
And fragile lands recover from the fury of her force
To go about the business of regrowth
My Darling does not compromise the nature of her course
The actions that are bound to her by oath
She is not a creator with a scheme she must enforce
And neither a destroyer, she is both.

My Darling has a body and a soul to which she clings
The flow of life and death are the cycles that she brings
The hopes, dreams and secrets are the stories that she sings
Her nature never was a guarantee
My Darling is the fountain from which life eternal springs
And holds the hope of what will one day be
She has a soul that courses through a million other things
And a spirit that has found a home in me.

h.

[zondrae]

Hi Hully,

That IS poetry. I like the way you have used the first two words in a repetitive manner. The imagery is delicious. Thanks for sharing.

[James]

HI again Hully the love of your subject come through the words that you have so cleverly penned . Enjoyed the post Andrew James

[Irene]

Hully,
Great to see you back - really enjoy reading your poetry.

Loved this poem, and the way you have described the river!! Keep them coming!!

[therese]

verrry nice andrew.  thanks for sharing