Alex Martin - Second Letter to Marlea

2. Second Letter to Marlea

There’s been a lot of rain here.

I was gathering firewood yesterday
with Hannah, my new-old collie
who’s about 15, and snores

& we poked first my walkingstick
and then our heads down
through the brown dead leaf floor

into a tiny cave, and heard
far beneath, the flow of water
rushing on

down to the Tennessee
the Mississippi
& the Gulf

& on.