CONFLUENCE

At the Aire’s end,

At the close of the day,

The sky, a rather boring grey,

Melds with the waters at the bend,

Where the Ouse, pale and wide,

Still and listless at ebb tide,

Accepts the waters from Leeds and Keighley,

Almost half heartedly, swirling them briefly,

And the wind turbines stand unresponsive,

With a correspondent despondency,

Brought about by their failure to whirl,

And the smoke and steam from Drax,

So often brilliant white,

Is an absence of billowing curl,

A barely perceptible haze, 

And the dripping trees in greens and blacks,

Add to the dull scene, absorbing the light,

And I stand here trying to erase

The thought : ‘I am part of this desolation,

Subsumed, at one with the gloom,’

Until the sun from behind the power station,

Suddenly highlights the cooling towers,

And in that moment all is changed,

And we are ourselves again,

Me, the rivers, the sky, the warp-land plain,

The cold wind and the icy showers.