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
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