The river went by Adam Parry
Once upon a time in the little land of sleep there lived a
lassie called Loz who loved to dance
with the Fairies over the land here and there and back again. Most
mornings she’d watch the old man heading for the river a walking-stick in both
hands who tentatively made his way to the river’s edge where he clumsily sat by
the river as the river went, thinking thoughts he had never thought before.
Loz and the Fairies danced faster than the river went. Up,
up, up Loz went to the top of the tree clad valley and back down then up the
further slope from the river dashing and dancing between the pine trees then hand in hand the ring of Fairies barrelling
down to the river like a mad twelve-headed monster thing she danced in circles
splashing in the water, laughing and happy as new-borns in a fresh green world.
Up, up she dances on, as the Fairies flag and go to sleep, up to her favourite
tree, atop her favourite brae and aloft in the branches she would stare all night
at the beauty of the moving’s of the moon and the stars imagination.
She woke again remembering the laughter in the dream where
she was air-dancing feeling like a miracle.
Soon her Fairy friends took Loz dancing down the hills passing by the old man at
the river-edge his boots off his socks off his feet cooled by the fresh water.
He turned to see the dancing and such perfect laughter and he laughed too long
and loud at the vision as if he had never laughed before.
Loz woke one day high in her treetop thinking it was still
night-time, the stars were veiled and the moon hid behind the dark perhaps a
darker circle in the unnerving night. All the silent night around her had
stilled her want to dance, so slowly she made it to the riverbank in search for
the old man who was always there and decided to walk along the riverbank hoping
to find the old man with his two sticks.
He couldn’t have got far, there was no sign of the Fairy
folk her best friends hidden from her as if they were afraid of the dark. At times she
called their names but soon got frustrated when her friends never came out to
play. She felt abandoned and alone, angry also so she screamed out her Fairy
friends names, still no-one came and she wanted to weep.
Instead she went to river bank in the cold air of the fair
vale excommunicated from the sun, she knelt there on the edge of the bank her
face in the water drinking deep sucking it in as if the cold would wake her
from this nightmare. Her hair sodden with water, rivulets of water streamed
down her face as she stood she started to look for the old man but she never
found him all those thoughts he had never thought before gone as fast as the
river went.
She was freezing and weak with despair she searched the prison
of unlight for the remembrance of sunlight, but she saw no sign, so tired, so
weak, so abandoned as a storm of snow
fell she dropped to her knees and would not move again, so slowly she froze and
she knew she would never move again.
One day in the little land of dreams a Fairy found Loz,
frozen her laughing face gone covered with hoar frost, her sparkling laughing
eyes frosted closed, her body stiff and broken unwilling to dance. The fairy
cried and did not dance again.
On another day another old man with tender feet came into
grey lands of sleep and as the other man sticks gripped in both his two hands,
and as if he were following a pilgrim trail found himself at the river’s bank,
near of pool caught by the rocks about. Whistling through his teeth as he
slowly lowered his bare, sore feet in the water and despite himself cried out
of the thrill of the freezing water. He put his sticks aside and waited for the
cold to numb the pain in his poor feet. A heavy rain fell and he huddled under
his coat pulled over his head and so silent and so still he watched as the
river went.
Almost tranquil cocooned in the dark wet of this land where
the stars were not watched or the sun warming. He had decided that tomorrow he
would cross the river and go in search of greener happier lands, he had seen
not a soul in his journey across the land of sleep as if the land was deserted
except for nightmares and even they hid from him. He fell asleep wrapped in his
sodden clothes and dreamt of a dancing happy girl who went to where the river
went.
Rain fell down on him and soon the wet set him off shivering,
the moment of dawn had come and gone all the land of sleep was lost in the
awful darkness. He wrapped his clothes tightly about him warding off the
invisible rain, burrowed his face in his coat. Then he saw it, a cold light, a
faded circle, hidden. The sight of the light scared, no, terrified him and he
ran barefoot to find shelter from the baleful illumination.
The sudden light hurt his eyes, helpless tears from his eyes
made him want to claw at the rain soggy mud of the riverbank, made him want to
hide from the light he had once thought so beautiful, he dug harder and when
the hole was deep enough he jumped down and pulled down mud that covered him,
blinded by the mud falling on his face.
Thankful now in his burrow, the quarter light of moon in the restless rain, was gone from his
view, and he felt at once that darkness of his living grave was much more
welcoming than the monstrous light beyond, and here too it was a lot warmer and
soon the chill in bones subsided. He could have hidden, there almost breathing
the mud, forever. Yet as the palsied sun rose the terrifying ghost ivory white
went where it would and as if somehow aware, he dug himself out eventually,
stood at edge plastered from foot to head in dirt.
Too make matters even worse he had unmanned himself, he
blushed at the thought of it, then laughed to himself, who would notice in all
this he crawled to the river’s edge. The
river roared as if it had become the whole world, the river went too fast
disorientating his eyes, spray from the river startled his face. He stripped
and washed himself washed the clothes, once again he blushed at his stains
yellow and brown that had been left as reminder of his fear
Yellow sunlight, battling sun, lost sun forced him to put on
his still damp clothes, he found his sticks and was filled with relief. Now he
had been restored to a level of pride he humbly allowed himself he stood tall
strong fist gripping his sticks he looked up at the sun and the yellow haze
looked down amazed and Lenny his sticks in his two hands, dances across the
river as if he were buoyed above the surface as a he remembered a song he
loved.
One day Loz dried her clothes on a rock. That didn’t take
long for if they were still damp she could dance herself dry. But a new
tiredness overcame her and she could barely breath she took off her shirt and
skirt and took of her shoes. Then naked she flew into the morning freer than
ever before. Then she flew into dark pines and the Fairy-folk sing, can sing
again and they found Loz staring down into the valley. She saw another man
walking his walking sticks through the sunless land. She saw him make his way
to the river, holding he sat his sticks in both hands he looked out the winter and saw her red shoes by the river
bank and her clothes. She climbed down to the valley. He watched the water
heard the noise of it. Loz sat down beside of him, smiled at the old man and
asked him to dance.
So they did dance hand in hand along the bank then back
again. Her clothes were dry and she dressed and took the old man’s hand and
they danced so swiftly and so far in the once green valley. They ended up back
on the river, Loz was hot and felt restricted in clothes, now she stripped and
stood proudly and took his hand and once more as if the old man was superman he
never stopped and spun around faster and faster never flagging, now back at the
riverbank watching the way the river went
and singing the songs the fairy folk had taught Loz and river roared
swiftly by. The hidden sun blind to it.
The ghost circle of light bewitched the man, he stared as if
he had never seen moonlight before. He was not afraid, nor was he tired after
dancing all day, now still he needed to dance, beneath the moon as beautiful as
a baby’s face, transfixed until the parody of sunrise when Loz awoke. Then let
us dance and they jumped up on tiptoes and fell dancing on the top of the river
water, the river burbled and gurgled with pleasure as they spun holding each
other in their arms, and river roared with laughter together they pirouetted
and danced the length of the river going where it went. Still they dance and
the flow took them far beyond the bends in the river, faster and faster they
danced so eager to escape the sun abandoned little land of sleep.
And as they went further the fairy folk sang from the bank,
serenading the river making Loz feeling less alone she took Lennie’s hand. The
river went beneath them the dancers held safe by the tides while they witnessed
a seagull watching, more came the seagulls flocked and, she jumped up to catch
one but it eluded her. Tired on the cliffs the fairies stopped singing sadly
that Loz and Lennie were going where the river went, tears too that the would
never see Loz again and they wept into the water. But one of the fairies flew
to Loz from the cliff. Loz’s Helen, her first fairy friend who taught her dance. Now
she was air dancing as she did in her dreams Helen was drenched and Lennie put
her on his shoulder and a rush of the current took them further from blackened
land.
They danced all day faster as if they were a whirling
dervish, they watched the sky that was of different shades of blue with opal
clouds fresh-made in the sky.
She lost Lennie above the roar and rumble of the water and
all the fairies delighted the river with songs only fairy folk sing. Soon the
river was to arrive soon to where the river went and a great waves propelled
them along and then another wave the sea smashed into them and drowned the
valley and the fairies’ songs were swot away, but Loz reached up atop the wave she
screamed out new songs and ecstatically pogoed on the wave, waltzed on the
surge of the wave, the river reached the sea and they fell into the salty
water, swam to the beaches and lay on the sand and laughed at the love in the
little land of sleep and drifted off and dreamt of another day in the land of
sleep.
Peterculter 2024
