Hi Colin,
Wow! I almost missed this one! (Maybe it appeared when I was actually in a 
similar place to where the poem's describing!) but I'm glad I've read it via 
Mike's post! And, so, scuse my piggy-backing!

It's a fine read!

It "could" be a lot shorter and still say the same thing... perhaps with the 
"canvas" I'm swinging out towards thinking "this is a landscape painting of 
a poem." and I'm wondering how much of the landscape has to be explicit, and 
how much could be implicit. Maybe it's a bit like a Gainsborough portrait 
where the guy wanted to paint landscapes but earned his money by painting 
people! So he had to be careful to make sure the people got most attention!

I wonder if the poem would still work if the following were omitted?
   made weightless by water as we take in
   diagonals of hills against a canvas sky.

   August colours saturate the eye
   as skins and mouths are filled by essence of mountain:
   so much rain even this rivulet
   is a torrent."
I sort of feel you're making me know these things are happening in the rest 
of the poem, no real need to spell it out like you've done.

I like the sack image near the start, too! But how many sacks can you take? 
Single sack, many sacks? You must be really strong!!! And wheat? If it were 
oats, I'd also eventually think of Scotland and using local water to make 
porridge... If it these were sacks of barley I'd eventually think of a good 
malt (just the thing to restore warmth after the chill of the dowsing you've 
had! The way you've got to the feeling of how much the water weighs, tho, is 
cannily how it feels!

The ending is also quietly something I recognise, it's great!!!!

I'm still working through the title tho... but coming round to thinking I 
like it, too!

Bob

PS - I'm thinking about Mike's query about the tea... "Is tea tanned?" I 
guess it isn't - but I never noticed that in the poem! It might be that I 
linked "tanned" with "tanic acid" and didn't read what you wrote, merely 
understood what a fuddled part of my brain read!

...I guess reading the poem straight after reading someone else's comments 
adds more colour, makes for more comment...



>From: Mike Horwood <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: newsub/side-effects
>Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2003 13:51:39 +0300
>
>Hello Colin,
>             I like the narrative element in this piece and the sense of a 
>real place and events. You´ve also got some interesting and unusual images 
>e.g. in line 2. I was surprised to find sacks of wheat here but once I´d 
>tuned in to what you were saying I have to agree that it´s very 
>appropriate, a significant weight of water falling on one´s back really 
>does deliver quite a thump. I liked the idea of coldness buried in the 
>water later in the poem, too. I was a bit doubtful, though, about comparing 
>the bed of the burn with a bath filling with water. I understand that the 
>image you´re after is the swirling of the water, but is a bath really an 
>appropriate image in this connection? I´m asking tentatively, of course, 
>and it may well be that you´ve decided it works as you want, which is fine. 
>The word `tanned´ in the following line also drew me up a bit. I like the 
>idea of peat bleeding into the water and the comparison of the colour of 
>the water with tea, but `tanned as tea´ disturbs me. Is tea tanned? 
>Finally, I found the last line a bit confusing and possibly trying to add 
>an extra dimension that the poem doesn´t need, I mean that final thought 
>seems a bit extraneous to all that´s gone before.
>I hope these thoughts are useful, bin them if you think I´m rambling.
>
>
>
>Best wishes,   Mike
>
>
>
>
>--- Alkuperäinen viesti ---
>Side-effects.
>
>Under the fall
>the water pounds like sacks
>of wheat, not wet or cold
>but a weight of water
>flattening my back.
>I cannot hear or see a thing
>until I step from the blank wall
>to where the children stand
>laughing at their father's battered limbs.
>They wade in and then we sit
>with heads above a film of foam
>that we float upon and drink at the same time,
>made weightless by water as we take in
>diagonals of hills against a canvas sky.
>
>August colours saturate the eye
>as skins and mouths are filled by essence of mountain:
>so much rain even this rivulet
>is a torrent.
>In the monsoon of this summer
>the bed of the burn is filled like a swirling bath.
>It is tanned as tea
>where peat has bled into the current.
>I can taste with my tongue
>what was added to the rain
>for nothing comes on its own.
>Nothing comes cleanly.
>Even as we float the first shiver shows
>the coldness buried in the water,
>entering our bones.
>
>
>The sun shines hot on our faces,
>dazzles from the smallest ripple.
>Redness comes to the skin.
>We swim as long as we can
>and then go down,
>pass boulders turned over in the last flood
>and the place where water
>rushes through the rib-cage of a fallen deer.
>From above we approach a network of roads,
>not any of them to one place in the end.
>
>
>
>Colin
>
>
>

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