29th June with Brian Whittingham

Gaia's gift

by Pat Sutherland


Water burbles, water drips,
water moistens thirsty lips
water flows and water splashes
water hisses, water crashes
water laps, and slaps and falls
water trickles, water crawls.

Water sings and water dances,
trickles, surges, drips and prances
Water treats and cures our ills,
water harms and water kills
as tempests rage and heaven frowns,
water invades and water drowns.

Water's blue and water's green,
Water's frenzied and serene
water's snow and ice and rain
springing life in arid plain
water's clear, or curdled foam,
Water's our ancestral home.

Blessing in a time of drought,
the gift
earth
cannot
         live
without.

Travelling

by Aileen Paterson

on this cold day

on a barge where the stove is just heating up

and Giovanna’s wrapped in my green coat

and sat out front alone where ducks go by

and a cormorant

strayed from rocky shores

and I’m sipping coffee with John who is

writing everything down

and the sound of pen on paper is comforting

like our words are moving us along

and out back Bev steers and chats

with Debbie, Steve and Pat

and I clamber up into weak sunlight and smiles

from passers by who are not used to barges

or boats of any sort on this stretch of water

this neglected highway now only for joggers, dog walkers

and the trees reach out branches

as outstretched hands

and warehouses, churches, new flats pass by

until at last we arrive

back where we started

thrown ropes tied fast

held still, secure

in this gathering of souls

Aileen's Photos say it all...

Bells Birds Fish and Rings

by John Young

Scorched broken landscapes, fractured society,
fish that never swam, a once proud waterway , congested with prams.
Boats that don't sail, trees don't grow, birds don't fly bells don't ring.

Profits before people, noses in the trough, oligarchs out of water, elitist toffs. 

Peccadillo

by Giovanna MacKenna

There was no place for my words
no space where I could let
them loose, they had no
shelter but were chaotically
unleashed to the mercies of
uncomprehending stares, bitter
gusts of green-tinged winds

I heard a tale of truths
spoken in a wood-lined
cradle, words cherished by
the soft lapping of reed-soaked
swells, a fire glowing on water
as ready ears gathered-in
the inky sprays of others’
lives and held them dear

This, is a liminal place where
elemental forces mix
water, fire, wind ignite with
the earth of our courage.
This is an ‘other’ world
where words and friendships
blaze upon the water, a beacon
for those whose bodies
pulse with unquiet echoes

Ice Pics