We were delighted to get involved recently with a poetry workshop on the 'UK Authors' international writers site. Following a request for a suitable poem we could use, a friend, John Griffiths, set a challenge for his fellow writers. The participants were asked to produce something lamenting the derelict waterways and the way litter seems to multiply all on its own.
The workshop resulted in a six super poems, each tailor-made for the subject which we are grateful to John and the authors for agreeing that they be showcased here.
Yesteryear sounds of babbling eddies,
fuse with giggles from narrowboats
gentle wash.
Sluice gates release a tide of suspension,
that soothingly, angel-like
ascend above the blackened-scorched
brickwork.
Nature in chorus with a waterway
of tender verse.
Today it seems a gentler time
in fresh-painted buoyant caravans.
A twenty-first century recapture
of a past long dead.
Chug…Chug...Chugging.
Past the smell of decay and flotsam
of the ignorant.
We only have to look around
to understand how litter grows.
Plastic bottles on the ground;
used condoms under hedgerows;
a half-submerged shopping trolley:
they'll soon form a rubbish tip.
It is time we stopped this folly
and turn off the constant drip.
We should really take more pride
in what Mother Nature's given.
Let's restore the countryside
and our sins might be forgiven.
WAKE UP YOU RIVER! - by Catherine Edmunds (web site)
Wild river waterway, unkempt, unwelcoming
waders steer clear of your streams gone awry
silted with litter where four arches rise above
dry Cliveden Reach and Maidenhead Ditch
strewn with chip wrappers and bottles of bleach.
Emergent reeds rustle through sedges and nettles
Green Lane's locks hide, tight wrapped round in bindweed,
brambles, jack-by-the-hedge, dock leaves trod, flattened
sycamore, hawthorn and green willows weeping
winding their branches through torn Tescos bags.
Maidenhead Moor remembers the Thames
Windsor's fine waterways, mill leats, navigation.
reeds cut for thatch not left long to moulder
timber gone, ghost barges wait at the wharf
with skeletal trolleys and nine traffic cones.
Bray Reach to Bourne End, waterways follow
across Cookham Moor to far Fleet Ditch Strand,
Widbrook diminished where once streams flowed rapidly
deep into Summerleaze lakes, sunkissed grasses
sinking to sludge beneath rainbow oil slicks.
Old flash lock weir pools, Laggan, Cordwallis,
deemed danger to children, so clogged up with filth.
'Cored Gwal Llys' mansion by weir pool…
ah, words lose their meanings where once withy windles
and wildfowl seek water and solace in vain.
Chapel Arches, dried out by root sucking
Lombardy poplars past old Grace's Timber Wharf
drowned in silt, filled in for building. Remember?
Brunel was once here. Left his mark building bridges
where weir pools held drama of flash locks and flooding
washing their cargo of boats to the next lock
and there they stay, waiting and fading in twilight
silted and sunken, forgotten and gone.
Wake up, you river!
Water, resurgent, resound through your ditches
silt sink no longer, be dredged, willows watching
waders and skippers, damselflies, nymphs,
swim things return and be welcomed back home
Where barges once plied
A trade on the waters
While bright-painted boats
And pink-cheeked young daughters
Sailed past with a smile
There's now plastic bottles
And cycles and mattresses,
old baby rattles
The stream that was full,
Uncluttered and pouring
Is sluggish and muddy,
Congested. The mooring
Where vessels were tied
Is matted and thick
And clogged up with wire,
Old fence posts and brick
The waterway proper
Is filled in with rubble
Choked of its life,
It breathes the odd bubble
From something that's lying
Trapped under the scum
A dead dog or rat,
A leaky old drum?
And further along
Beneath the old bridges
Lie bedframes and bicycles
TVs and fridges
Microwaves, radios
Little girl's dollies
Fishing rods, railings
Tripods and trolleys
For man is a doer
He dug all these courses
He built all the boats
He reared the horses
He made all the engines
He found all the fuel
He ran the rat-race
To technology's rule
Water carried the goods
As no other means could:
Stone, coal and pig iron
Flour, corn, wheat and wood
Providing the channels
To power the nation
Now we are seeking
To make restoration
Bring back some health
To our ways and our waters
Unblock the culverts
(bring back the daughters!)
Free the lock gates
Unshackle the flows
Give water its life
And see how it grows
WHAT THE RIVER WATCHMAN SAID - by S.P.Oldham (web site)
They say still waters run deep,
Perhaps, sometimes, this is so
They lie, stinking and asleep
While the algae thrive and grow
Upon the surface, calm and flat
Giving life whilst seeming dead
But they are soiled, for all that;
Is what the River Watchman said
Sit along the bank with me,
Watch the weary river pass
Look closely friend, and see
Beyond the hardy reeds and grass
What tale does it tell?
What lies, rotting, in its bed?
Let me show you and dispel
Your quaint ideals, the Watchman said
Look at the water, black and grey
See the sludge-rimed edge, the scum
Observe the gentle, jeering way
The beer cans bob - drunken flotsam
A trolley, spine up, in the shallows
A tyre, drowned and airless
Smashed glass in the shadows
Left by the selfish and the careless
A plastic bag, snagged on a rock
Captures the waters for a while
The bag breaks, and then it mocks
The river with its ragged smile
This is no oil, spilled here
So troubled waters can be eased
This adds to Nature's toil,
Leaves her gasping and diseased
That she might nevermore run clear
Fills my very soul with dread
We will all suffer, I fear
The River Watchman said
So whilst you while away a morning
Dreaming of the rushing river
You would do better to start mourning
Do not smile; shiver
Look to the heart of our existence
The very arteries we need
To continue our subsistence
Yet we stand and watch them bleed
We leach the life out of her
Clog her up with waste and woe
Blame her for our misfortunes
But, if she should ever go
Die out, abused and neglected
Dry out, exhausted and bereft
It will be, as long suspected
We weak mortals who are left
To grieve her untimely passing
She ran, timeless, for so long
She should outlive man, surpassing
His blame - complacent song
I do not want to witness
A world left dry and dead
Help me revive her forgiveness
The River Watchman said
WATER FOUL
