River mouth

Men went into the water in their armor, and those who reached the bank were taken there.

The scribes wrote that a net had been prepared for the enemy at the river mouths, and that they had been dragged into it, surrounded and thrown down on the shore.

It was a complete victory.

The prisoners were marched away in long lines with their arms tied behind them.

On the west bank of the river at Thebes, his temple rose behind massive gateways, and his stonecutters covered the outer walls with the story of the war.

They carved the land battle and the carts, the chariots and the captives.

They carved the fight at the river mouths as a single great scene, ship against ship, men falling into the water, archers on the shore, the earliest sea battle known to have been carved in stone.

And they cut the figures deep, much deeper than earlier kings had done, so that no later king could smooth the pharaoh's name away and put his own in its place.

And I was fascinated by the way in which you use form in different places.

I wonder, would you mind reading one of the poems from the collection that I found really interesting in terms of form? And that's At the River Mouth.

Would you mind reciting that one for us? And then I'll ask you a question about it.

Yeah,

Let me just get it here.

Yeah.

At the River Mouth.

His feet apart, his head a counterweight.