The Invention of Otter

Otters, if they do a trick and you give them a fish, the next time they'll do a better trick or a different trick because they'd already done that one. And writers tend to be otters. Most of us get pretty bored doing the same trick. We've done it, so let's do something different.
~Neil Gaiman

A poem by Dr. Miriam Darlington, the author of Owl Sense.

No one can say how
it came out of the water
or how it plucked pebbles
from the river's pockets
and made thoughts

no one can say
how the night made nostrils
and whiskered its way
from the roots of an oak
no one can say

how its rudder thickened
with the wind, made fur
ripple into a stream
or how the storm muscled
a heart out of the moor

who can say when the eel
learnt fear, or the trout
first felt speed shiver
through its sides?
Only, when it swims
all the water leans towards it
frays air into a swilling of pearls
and streams love themselves more deeply.

All I can say is, at that moment
poetry nosed its way into the world
took its place among the four elements
made them five, and now
when night silks the water
the weave of it says
shshsh, keep it secret

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Buffy Silverman has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Buffy!