Hi Mike,
What fun! I can almost see you grinning! The story of Nark - I like it! 
Poetry often walks alongside things like this does (or hobbles alongside if 
its feet are missing!).
Bob


>From: Mike Horwood <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: New sub: The stream
>Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 15:16:45 +0300
>
>The Stream
>
>Once upon a time there was this stream
>that was just a stream and didn´t symbolise anything.
>It flowed through a wood
>but it didn´t sing because streams don´t do that.
>However, it flowed along feeling quite merry.
>In places where it was shallow
>the stream rippled and splashed, refracting sunlight.
>In other places it ran deep and smooth
>and in some places it ran underground.
>These were good locations for a well,
>of which there were many,
>but the air was as damp and clammy
>as a cold hand on the heart in these shaded corners.
>
>One day the stream flowed past a `he´
>who was not Narcissus and didn´t symbolise
>anything more surprising than his own self.
>We´ll call him Nark because that was his name.
>On this day Nark was employed
>in dipping bare feet in the stream.
>He had a pile of these feet on the bank beside him
>because collecting bare feet was a hobby of his.
>He cut these feet from the legs of unwary travellers
>in the wood, especially psychologists
>because Nark strongly opposed all forms of analysis.
>Whenever he cut off a psychologist´s foot
>he awarded himself ten points.
>The foot symbolised his father. Nark had a lot of points.
>
>Sometimes when Nark was thirsty he drank from the stream.
>But recently he had started creeping off
>to one of the wells to slake his thirst from a furtive bucket.
>
>Suddenly a `she´ appeared in the poem,
>almost out of nowhere. I say `almost´
>because she was well-known to Nark -
>in the Biblical sense -
>and the happy pair sat down on the bankside
>where they dipped Nark´s bare feet in the stream together
>like a couple of symbolic turtle dove´s.
>
>Sad to say, this idyllic scene was of short duration.
>The inevitable arrived, bringing storm clouds with it
>which didn´t symbolise a battle,
>neither was there any rain,
>which might have symbolised tears.
>However, she-who-is-nameless was hurt,
>but instead of explaining the cause of her injury,
>she dissimulated.
>When Nark proposed dipping another bare foot
>she turned from him, like a stream turned from its course.
>
>Several days passed in this way
>until one morning Nark went to sit by the stream
>and found its bed quite dry.
>`Well bugger me,´ exclaimed Nark.
>There was a willow tree nearby so Nark plucked
>a forked wand and began dowsing.
>She-who-is-nameless watched all this
>from a position of concealment behind a tree.
>She knew he was puzzled - who wouldn´t be -
>but she never explained.
>
>Nark knew a thing or two about the course
>of subterranean flows and with the help of his wand
>he soon found a spring that ran into a deep pool.
>He sat down by the side of it and gazed
>at his reflection in its glassy surface.
>She-who-is-nameless was peeping over his shoulder
>but he didn´t notice her reflection behind him,
>not even when she chucked the key of their cottage
>over his head into the pond.
>
>Popular myth maintains that Nark is there still
>with a really enormous pile of bare feet
>and more points than he knows what to do with.
>This is the reason that so many psychologists
>require a prosthesis.
>
>
>
>
>Mike

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