‘Know a River’ Poem by Gregory Day
from Southsightedness
Published by Transit Lounge, 2025
Southsightedness is a beautiful book and artefact.
Know A River
Know a river
any river
but know a river.
Know that life passes
at the river’s pace
that staunch limbs
get snagged till they twist
and easy lissome fronds
go floating seaward.
Know a river’s justice.
Know that borders never last
that energy laps and erodes
kisses and flows,
that even dry banks
try to tumble towards god.
Know that it takes
all sorts to make a river:
busy insects, gawky birds,
cluey fish & deeply migratory dust,
parsimonious eels, old-man traps,
sky-mirror and rippling wake,
just as the winter-into-spring
often turns a river to a lake.
Know photos of a river
know sedge
know it in a boat
know its scent from some way off.
Know that life’s tempo
scythes through moments
of hot and cold
that deepest down is coolest
that shiny rivertops perform
the magic tricks of this world.
Know what it is
to sit & cry into a river
adding yours to its
as water draws grief
like a bucket at a well.
Know its wild boyhood too
its jetty planks when baking hot
and cypress cubbys
where your desire caught fire
where it flows and cascades.
The river knows
nothing lasts forever
forever passes like the weather
things flash on the scales of skin
and seep houseward.
All longing is natural.
Remember as a kid
the affinities you felt
with tea-coloured streams
and glittering reaches
how a river was your sister
the perfect listener,
and make it so once more
to solve the drought in loneliness.
Go about life
with the river
and its sibilant whisper
so that moments
hours & days
can sow your moody spirit-fields
with tides and currents
with winds that teach you
the ephemera of knowing.
Thoughts to accompany ‘Know A River’ by Gregory Day
Like many many people, I grew up with rivers. There was the river near our house on the orchard-lands outside Melbourne, the river (sometimes called a creek) on the west coast of Victoria where I learnt to swim, the river running through a friends’ farm near Yea which had such an impact on my imagination, the mighty Darling River running through the red dirt where we would go and camp, the river in the heart of the Otways where I studied for my end of school exams, and the River Suir in Tipperary in Ireland which I visited as a young man to help me understand where my family had come from going right back.
One result of my relationship with all these ancient and magic waterways is that I feel I thrive in river air. I can’t say it any better than the poem does itself but living on Wadawurrung country by the river where I learnt to swim is at the heart of my life. I love this little river so much, both downstream in its estuarine guise and upstream where I walk in its freshwater tang among the tall trees of the forest. The river air doesn’t end at the water’s edge, it breathes and circulates all around us.
I feel a religious sentiment towards the river. To me, as to so many others, it is a great friend and guide. As I swim around its bends I listen to what the river has to tell me, namely, that in an ideal world we humans would treat all rivers and their communities of plants, fish, birds, crustacea, marsupials, insects, reptiles, etc, with understanding and care, like the extended family that they are.
Rivers flow through our lives, whether or not we notice that they are there. Each one has the potential to show us the enigmatic nature of time, the necessity of natural motion, and the buoyancy and mystery of being alive. Yep, if we pay attention, each river, no matter how dirty or clean, tells us who we are, what has happened, and how the future may run.
Know a river. Any river. But know a river.
Southsightedness at Transit Lounge
Available at all good bookstores now.
Interview with Gregory Day about his novel The Bell of the World at PaperbarkWords blog
paperbarkwords.blog 