Rush to the head
narrow veins from the source
arsenic searching,
leeching, finds a mouth
sluicing headwaters
crawl
A landscape
of the living mind,
mined river bed
oxbow lake draining
becomes
the swamp
deposits,
panning, scooping,
run off
clogged with sediment
Inside each of us
cutting tunnels,
damming,
the sinking
of treacherous shafts,
for minerals
Deceased prospectors…….
orphaned Chinese headstones
littered amongst children’s cemetery
lie high above the dry gully
where once
a spiritual tributary
flowed
today
scarred and furroughed,
shallow,
meandering
between ruin
and decay
August 2017