Tasked by NaPoWriMo with writing inspired by a fortune cookie, I delved into an online repository of those aphorisms and found this implausibly long, but entirely appropriate fortune – “Hidden in a valley beside an open stream- This will be the type of place where you will find your dream.” It really does sound like it was written with otters in mind, doesn’t it?
It reminded me of a story my lovely friend Lil told me. She was walking her dog on the banks of the Tyne river behind her house, when she saw an otter floating on its back in the water, for all the world looking like it was daydreaming. Lil was convinced she was imagining her future mate and family, and behold! some months later she saw the otter again, this time playing with two pups. They were on the opposite bank, and had found a red ball, which they were rolling to one another. So this is a poem for Lilly’s Dreaming Otter.
she dandles herself in the current
with her drowsy webfoot flutter
all whiskery contentment
she is as sweet as doing nothing
upriver and down, fishing and floating
balance in her belly and her heart
she watches the wind sift the sky
into its several selves
nested clouds, ribbons, tufts
some dark enough to cry themselves
back into the ever-slippery sheets
of her water-bed, this river
where she is dreaming up
a spry dog to share it
a glinty rogue, a playmate
they will make a home
where the river bank is scalloped
with beaches of pelt-brown sand
they will make pups, a proper romp
nose to tail to nose to tail
they will make a carousel of love