A walk

The river bends, travels, draws with its pencils
fortunate hours, marigolds, reed-mace.
Arguments don't stop when leaves drop the Autumn, 
or in the presence of willow trees.
The formidable wind, the grasshoppers
cannot steer a mind in pain, a thought galvanising,
a grown-up relationship tethered to a wooden post.
Children's hands are experts in unfolding  treasures,
broken, colourful pieces of glass.
She buried animals’ bones, feathers and pieces of cotton,
she preferred her fingernails black, and dry mud
ageing her hands prematurely.
When the mud breaks and dissolves in the water
she dries her hand on her dress
and throws her socks in the river to feed the
swans, moorhens and morning bats.
 she keeps her stale sandwich
and her green apple bitten once
in a rabbit hole.

Ladybirds have tinted her hands yellow.
She leaks her hair and
softens her smile when a dog rubs itself against her thighs.
The sun has burnt her knees and the back of her neck.
On the way back home
her path has become unfamiliar but safe.
She skips and jumps, dives into
the long grass and rolls over
until her mother whispers 
I will take  you under
my winds, darling
when the rain starts falling 
but the child begins to cry.