She is river

This poem was written for a commission in the Love Stories to Nature series by SPANArts, a Pembrokeshire based arts organisation.

A group of four artists got together to create a new multi-media work, which was performed for a very appreciative audience in the Oak Hall, Rhosygilwen.

I was to write a poem on the subject of 'rivers', a composer/musician then wrote a piece of music in response to my poem, a choreographer took the music and created a dance with 12 dancers, and a ceramic artist saw the dance and created new ceramics in response to that. It was done in Chinese Whispers style, so each artist only saw or heard the piece they were to respond to.

When all the pieces were finished we had a 'big reveal' when we all saw each others work in the order in which is was made. Hearing the music for the first time was very moving -- how did all that amazing music come from my poem?

We then had just under two weeks to weave all the pieces together into a performance (see poster below).

Tere were other poets involved too, who were drawn in through the community engagement aspect of the work. The final result was magical! And we hope to perform it again.

Here's the poem I wrote for the project:

She is river

She rises from earth-deep under the Preseli.

Feel how cool is her birth.

Through centuries of peat in a marsh of sphagnum,

weeping from the inner core,

river wells up among heathers and ling.

 

Her bourne trickles and bubbles,

forms bogs, rich and warm.

Taste her home source and there is iron,

scent her keld, her acid origins.

 

Aquamarine with hammered pewter,

she reflects light from mountain tops,

mirrors clouds in mires.

 

She is river This is home.

Fluent, perpetual, streaming

unbroken, ever changing, never ceasing.

 

White water spills and writhes through gorges

under bridges, spumes over falls

surges beneath spring leaves.

Spreading broad and slow under hot summer skies,

her force races and rages after autumn rains.

 

While she flows through farmland,

past factories, industrial estates,

through housing, beside roads, below bridges

she swallows taints and tints of effluents,

takes in all our poisons,

absorbs slurry from fields, sewage overspill from housing estates,

chemical discharges from factories,

and she swallows up our plastic waste.

 

She is river This is her home.

Fluent, perpetual, streaming

unbroken, ever changing, never ceasing.

 

She cannot turn upstream to struggle against currents

as the long-lost salmon swam to birthing pools.

There is no return, so she flows ever down

down she runs for miles and miles until …

she emerges

 

 in havens and estuaries

where gulls wheel and squeal

dolphins leap, autumn seals wail

and the oystercatchers are keening,

where, every day, pleasure-boats buzz

ferries dock, oil and gas tankers come and go

… where curlews call to entreat our silence…

 Listen.

She calls.  She is river.

 

And as we swim in her broad flows,

spread limbs in her eddies –

water like silk on skin –

we will absorb the slicks and slips,

toxic essences, oily licks

that we have poured into her.

 

We will take it all in

Never ceasing, fluent, unbroken, streaming…

streaming home to oceans ...  

She is river.