Gyroscope Review 15-3 | Page 51

Wanney Wilds by Oonah Joslin Sweethope and sweet the waters flow down from the lough by Wanney’s Crag they tumble through Kirkwhelpington and Font joins in making the Wanney wild. Wallington’s trout silver her stream. Wansbeck skitters over steps snakes through meadows seeps through brackish woods, bluebells Hartburn, Mitford downward wends past where the Minster once stood new, erect by her side. She reckons centuries as days witnesses ebb and flow wattle and daub and stone along her way; history, not of her making, scum, not of her making runs off from fields and ever gathering streams. She cuts a path 'Inter Sylvas et Caementi', lends her back to bridges, boats, shaggy dogs and children paddling, duck and swan nests and a crossing stoat. Gentle favours done to mortal kind. Her curvatious contours corseted by Morpeth’s steep banks; High Stanner’s calculi, the mott, the weir, the heron angle-poised to catch light fish flipping down under arches great and small, past defences, bridges, viaduct to Bothal castle. Build what they will; the Wansbeck, accustomed to grandeur, defers to none. Do not mistake her rages for caprice. Untamed, untamable, she heeds no prayer Gyroscope Review 4! 2