Her wisp-wov’n tether ‘n her braided cloud tear ‘n turn a risen red. The sun slips bounds ‘n moves toward the height of day.
“Abdju up ahead!”
Watching, all the while, th’Egyptian sky, she breaks upward, stands, and steps over and between baskets of fish ‘n grain, moving past the masts and their bloss’ming beams to look upon her destination.
A harbour swept by a bracing, racing wind, a-whooshing eastward, carving up the water’s surface, swelling ‘neath the ibis wing’s – soft, single feather undulates, airborne, across the panoramic – plumage, playing the percussion of the creaking planks of cedar and the crumpuhling of canvas o’er the stockpiled stash of fish, brought fresh by fisherpeople finding bount’yus these primord’yul waters, whence the boat from Wa-Set wafts, now wav’ring in the dying gusts that race – it braces as the whooshing wind falls silent.
Reeds – lush-green – in glintsome gath’rings, corralled by the river, mark – amphibious – the border ‘tween the body and the blood. Floribund in shades of emerald ‘n moss ‘n chlorophyll (of sunshine soaked) sway, swerve: resilient; disturbed; e’er undestroyed. Alight upon the stoic stem: an insect, in its winged way, waits – weary – whilst, between the plants, a fish winds ‘gainst the current. Preening, pressed together, gesturing their gentle messages, a pair of lovebirds lull a-by the bank.
The girl steps off the boat onto the harbour.
Image credit – UWE
william altoft 