Water Babes - Poem by Ivan Donn Carswell

We were water babes, born in the arms of a sparkling brook
that patiently took us into its heart. At the very start we
were never far from its shingly banks, playing amid ranks
of serried wildflowers. When one of us all but drowned
in a careless encounter the stream buoyed her up in a swirling embrace,
enchanted by her smile, ingenuously placed a coronet of gold
on her touseled head and delivered a beatified child of the water.
All of us knew who had saved her. She wears the crown still,
the gold faded to russet in autumn decline, but her love
is as pure as the divine water that gave her her life.
In the passage of time we grew out of the streamside
and flowed into a fractious world beyond the sheltered hills,
we learned of wars and catastrophes, torment and misery,
the dour pain of soured relationships; lessons which
challenged our humble origins, questions unanswered.
One cannot deny a brook may breach its peaceful banks
and scour a flagrant path with awesome power,
potential might belies the calm that flowers
in gentle times, and gentle times were all we knew.
But beside our brook the true conscience of peace
had shaped our thoughts and romantic beliefs.
© I.D. Carswell