A nice picture; a lot of it works. You seem to have  rather a lot of
'that's. Four lines begin with 'that': try and use other ways of connecting
these ideas, because 'that' seems rather clumsy especially when used so
often. for example it could be

to keep its clear curve

solid and space
meet as.... (that is if I have understood the syntax here)

that I know as human (this one is OK as there is a stress and meaning in the
'that' which is weaker in the other cases)

and the last one could be

and does not stir to any caress.

SallyE


on 11/12/02 10:57 am, Dewar Colin [FVPC] at [log in to unmask]
wrote:

> Children Paddling
>
>
> Burn water gushes.
> Sun warms children's skin
> as they swim in the shallows.
> I watch from the sides of the gulley
>
> while their lives run through my fingers like water.
> I cannot hold a single day
> and say it is mine to keep.
> Deft limbs flicker
>
> like light on the cavern wall;
> lives not like the ripple
> that keeps its clear curve
> day after day in the current
>
> but leaves turning in the flow
> as they fall from the sun.
> We inhabit damp surface of granite
> mid solid and space
>
> that meet as stone presses on air and air on stone.
> The dense hill gestured upwards long ago,
> invaginating the light
> but knows in its core its kinship
>
> with the dead centre under living skin,
> the locked black vault of the planet.
> Rabbits burrow down into its hard heart,
> unearth ribs in their mound
>
> that I know as human,
> broken teeth that bit once pale knuckles:
> the bones of the dead rising from pagan turf,
> anguishing again in the sliver mid slab and storm,
>
> on the carapace of a great creature grown green with time.
> The Earth carries its cargo of grief around a glaring sun.
> The river passes its silver over and over the granite
> that does not stir to any caress.
>
> This river and this wind
> cannot coax a word from the stone
> with its soulless centre.
> The water trickles down into the dead earth
>
> to insinuate in cold sand and gravel if it could
> some vestige of torrential flight.
> The children paddle in the shallows
> and their lives run through my fingers like water.
>
> A stone tossed sinks to its home
> and water splashes in an arc of light.
>
>
>
> __________________________________
>
> Colin