A poem about the experience of waking up on the bank of the Nile, just above the place where the Lake becomes the River.

.

The Source

.

Emerging from deep night

Nocturnal whisperings,

Water sounds through canvas walls,

Sun’s pale colours seeping through nets,

Birds voices celebrating.

.

Outside late mosquitoes and lake flies

Swirl a last time around

Fading imitations,

Their dead caught in webs,

Scatter on deck beneath the lights.

.

Bird voices swell their morning chorus –

Impossible to differentiate,

Although a fish eagle is there

Melancholic and separate,

River crier amongst singers.

.

Landscape shapes take form,

Speckled silver river below,

Hills, trees, then houses appear

On far bank, unseen last night

Takes form, becomes clear.

.

On dead trees, rocks in midstream,

Cormorants, their wings raised,

Offered to a heating sun.

From further down stream

Sounds of wood against wood.

.

Landing-site is waking,

Fishers, in boats and on still air

Move across water, lake-wards, up river,

Breaking unbreakable silver surface,

Hunting shifting life below. 

.

Where a great lake becomes a mighty river –

Place of legends, site for dreamers,

Underground springs boil, simmer under surface,

Swirls of contradicting movements

Where Nile breaks out from Victoria.

.

Jinja, August 2020