a dream on the trout stream
and there it ends for me - just there
where it dips under the dressed stone
of the railway arch beyond the fence
on its old way down from heol las
the last run for my worm upstream
trolling the trout ledges of lunch
i have walked from the gasometer
to here and fished there and back again
to the deeper downstream flow of the wide
sandy ledges and rushes where the best
run for a brook-trout to take a sunny worm
is in the shallows of the golden rapids
flashed in flash and tugged to my hand
slippery and bagged for dinner and
across the neath road and on to the stone
bridge arched beneath llansamlet church
where grandpa sleeps
here the flumes are narrow and fast
where the chickweed has tickled many
a trout into the hand of this boy and
his dog slowly walking across the midge-
meadowed mid-dayed heat to sit
for a memory to be set for old age to
fish for a bite upon a hope and not
as false as the narrow tributary lies
for the water breaths much promised
but which they could not sustain
during a long summer when the fish
turned belly up white and sad finned
walk the last flat fields of meandering
before the mystery of that last dive
into the past of heol las has turned upon
a thought of a retraced step and a bag full of fish
for the last worms are expended
the long tired steps turn to walk
back home to the hearth of a frying pan
and a meal of stories shared with my dog
who is sleeping under the setting sun
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