A Memory

I fancy I can see him still the bird with breast as white as snow
He dip and bob on moss covered rock where the stream rapids flow
With chestnut coloured head and short stiff tail and mostly dark to brown
I hear him pipe his scratchy notes as he bobs up and down.

I recall I first see the bird when I was six or so
In the stream that flowed by my old home near fifty years ago
To me it seemed for to take his rest a precarious spot he'd found
As perched on a rock he chirped and sang where flood waters swirled around.

I was quite young six years or so and to the ways of nature green
And to a neighbour woman who knew of birds I told of what I'd seen
I said had the bird slipped from the rock he surely would have drowned
But she laughed and said that river and stream to his kind is home ground.

She added the bird that you have seen the stream is home to him
And dippers for to find their food under water must swim
On the bank of the stream he was hatched to life and in the stream he'll die
And he is one you will hear sing when the flood is raging high.

An aquatic bird a water life the only life he know
And I fancy I can see him where the stream rapids flow
With snow white breast and chestnut coloured head and mostly dark to brown
Perched on a rock I hear him sing as he bobs up and down.