Category Archives: river

I’ve Often Wondered – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Grace is hosting Meeting The Bar with an invitation to shift the focus from poetry form to craft style. Specifically: poems built around questions that remain unanswered. This technique isn’t about confusion. This is about about curiosity, exploration, and invitation. Rather than providing closure, question-driven poetry creates space for the reader to think, feel, and wonder with you. For more details follow the link below:

dVerse Poets – MTB – Poems of Questions (No answers)

Photo: the Leschenault Inlet at Australind, taken April 2025.


I've Often Wondered

Surely not all skies
are the same,
just imagine being
different every day
even every half day,
what would that be like
how would it feel?
Does the sky even have feelings,
I’ve often wondered if clouds
are the outward signs
of sky’s feelings,
not just the seasons
but the micro moments
of every day,
the mood swings
reactive expression
the joy, even laughter
is it possible that clouds
reach out like those
soft clumpy cotton wool
clouds that lighten my day
I suppose I could just ask
.

Copyright 2026 ©️Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

22 Comments

Filed under clouds, Free Verse, nature, Personification, poem, Questions, river, seasons

The Five O’clock Ducks – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Image by Ralph from Pixabay

The Five O’clock Ducks

Looking out the window
losing myself in the
effect of breeze on shrubs,
on the distant waves all
galloping in, we call these
wind riven waves white horses,
feeling the deep summer warmth
listening to small birds
sipping wine, talking the day
waiting for the five o'clock ducks
who will ascend from the river
and barely clear the roof,
why leave the river at night
and where is the grass greener
at night?

Copyright 2026 ©️Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

24 Comments

Filed under Free Verse, nature, poem, river, sea, summer

Sweet Salt – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Dora is hosting Poetics with an invitation to write a poem in the way Elizabeth Bishop would write, for more detail, follow the link below:

dVerse Poets – Poetics – Borrowing Bishop

Photo: Augusta, the south-west corner, taken in winter 2023.

Sweet Salt

Even before the river mouth
summer’s air is heavy wet
battering my flesh sticky
with sweet salt that thickens
my throat with a cough,
sea grass is rotting under
bright intense heat,
some of which refracts off
the talc like sand smelling
of salt and kelp, absorbing
the scree of gulls and terns
in its dense depths that only
waves roaring can defeat,
pushing, pumping water
into the air, rusting boats
and shop front awnings
with acid precision,
window cleaners busy, busy,
rounding the last bend
the southerly stirs my
eyes to water and wafts
the fish and chip shop
in a yearning for battered,
salted fish and golden
crunch chips, and my walk
becomes brisker more
intentional.

Copyright 2025 ©️Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

34 Comments

Filed under Augusta, beach, Free Verse, ocean, poem, river, Salt, sea

There Will Come A Time – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Grace is hosting Open Link Night, the night we choose a poem to post.

dVerse Poets – OLN

Photo: A section of the Lesmurdie Falls winter 2022

There Will Come A Time

Somewhere in my dreams
lie many rivers
some are tranquil respite
some narrow many wide,
a few are dangerously fast
all have their own language
their own moods,
each has flowed through
my life in and out of season,
I sense the dream's unease
there will come a time when
I must cross over them
without sight of the far shore.

Copyright 2025 ©️Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

32 Comments

Filed under awareness, dreams, Free Verse, life, poem, river

A Tanka by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Bjorn is hosting Open Link Night, the night we choose a poem to post.

dVerse Poets – OLN

Image by Sergio Cerrato – Italia from Pixabay

Form: Tanka (5-7-5-7-7)

I learned circles
from hedgerows lakes and forest
father gardening
from moon to sun and between
why make the circle dead straight

Copyright 2025 ©️Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

14 Comments

Filed under climate change, environment, Forest, Free Verse, life, nature, poem, river, sea, seasons, Tanka

Transfixed – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: Pelicans not gliding, waiting for fish scraps from the scaling table just out of sight, Hardy Inlet 2018.

American Cinquain (2-4-6-8-2)

Transfixed

I see
three pelicans
gliding fast upriver
with such grace I was transfixed
silent.

Copyright 2025 ©️Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

10 Comments

Filed under American Cinquain, nature, poem, river

Can Never Be Spoken – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Li is hosting Poetics with an invitation to write about magical moments of intimacy.

dVerse Poets – Poetics – Intimate Moments

Photo: Flat Rock reserve on the Blackwood River, 2024.

“One doesn’t really suck on frozen sugar water. One allows it to melt in the oven of the mouth.” Diane Seuss

Can Never Be Spoken

We left the day as it happened
skirted the weather because it was,
saving our words as keys
to our deepest feelings
seeking magic in millipedes,
new shoots, dew drops, weeds
in paving cracks who
unknowingly opened us to
ourselves, each other,
all the while floating
transcending routine expectations,
bypassing dead end distractions
moving past the delicacy of ripe flesh
for the inestimable sigh of a
language that is known
but can never be spoken.

Copyright 2025 ©️Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

33 Comments

Filed under awareness, bush walking, Epigraph, Free Verse, poem, river, sacred, Spirituality

Keep That Dam Wall – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Weirs, also known as check dams (Photo by MSU Wildlife, Fisheries and Aquaculture /Robbie Kroger)

“Good fences make good neighbours” Robert Frost

Keep That Dam Wall

Those of us at the
head of the stream agreed
we needed water and a plan
was devised to dam the flow,
enough for each nearby
household and still letting
much of it go downstream,
and for some length of time
this came to be and it
worked so beautifully,
but, at some point,
those downstream raised
that their needs were not
being met,
and so
we altered the dam wall to
let more water downstream
and it worked beautifully,
but, at some point,
those downstream raised
that they were not being
treated equally,
so we altered the damn wall
to allow more water to flow
downstream and
this worked beautifully,
but at some point
those downstream raised
that they needed more water,
so we altered the dam wall to
allow nearly all the water to
flow downstream, and
this worked to their advantage
and prejudiced ours,
but then they raised that they
needed even more water

from our meagre supply,
we broke down the dam wall
and let all the water flow
downstream and
very soon our crops
animals and trees
began to die while those

downstream thrived
and still they complained.

Copyright 2025 ©️Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

19 Comments

Filed under Epigraph, farming, Free Verse, injustice, life, poem, river

Towards His Shore -a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Art: ‘Ushibori’ by Kawase Hasui (1930) http://www.arctic.edu

“A solitary tune by a fisherman, though, can be an invaluable treasure.” Ikkyu Sojun

Towards His Shore

Breeze rippled surface
as river
so skin,
gentle snow adrift in the night
not so the chabune
Hiroshi's hands familiar
with the steady course,
his true beacon
the cottage light
provided by darkness,
Kimiko sheltered by her
bangasa against prying eyes
floats in her heart
towards his shore.

Copyright 2024 ©️Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

11 Comments

Filed under Ekphrastic, Epigraph, love, poem, river, romance

A Window Wide – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: sunrise over the Hardy Inlet (the confluence of the Scott and Blackwood rivers).

“So there’s only transcendence in the moment. Nobody can be transcended forever.” Byron Katie

A Window Wide

I read the headlines
sometimes
the detail irrelevant in
summation
for want of anything positive,
my memory carrying the
search for that grail
forward,
between disasters of
any kind
natural or human
personal or global,
daily the cataclysm
at my door,
but not today,
the sunrise brought
a window wide
with transcendence.

Copyright 2024 ©️Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

21 Comments

Filed under awareness, clouds, Epigraph, Free Verse, nature, poem, river, sunrise