Drowned

Lonely in the crowd he crept down river,
hid beneath pandanus as it beckoned
'come to me', crept in under shaded cave
and sat – watched the lazy limey water
as it swirled… and so he dreamy settled
quiet and still, until the almost silence
softly broke. Whirr of feathers, flash of red,
then the shady green pandanus blossomed
red on all its branches! It was dazzled
by the brilliance of the tiny crimson
finches as they honoured leafy clusters
with their effervescent presence, with their
flitting and their flirting and their dancing.

He, unmoving in the current, in the
turmoil and the movement on the branches,
drowned in beauty, and the bubbles of his
former life flowed upward through the ripples,
through the air so greenly shaded and the
calling of the finches.