Lament for Lost Things – a poem by Annie Kissack

Lament for Lost Things


I have found a place
where stray ferns link
long-fingered fronds
high above steep, damp verges
and below, in fuss and foam,
a stream emerges.
But sometimes from
the hurrying water
breaks a shy, jagged thought
born of the ravine, 
not sought:
a jutting fragment
offspring of the river bed,
aslant, no doubt
slippery to tread
and bearing the broken edge
of a voice 
that once I heard. 
After that, nothing, 
not a shiver,
not a word
just the steady spill
of all known things
down a shadowed bank
for who now sings
the scattering of stone
and feathered rock,            
and memory
and mark?

Annie Kissack is a teacher from the Isle of Man. A fluent speaker of Manx Gaelic, she enjoys singing and writing music for her choir, but only began writing poetry in the last few years, becoming the Fifth Manx Bard in 2018. facebook @anniekissackpoetry