Harriet Tarlo & Kym Martindale

1 poem

Loxley Agden Damflask


River Loxley


                        all these years 
                                      springing from moor   
                                                                                    waterfalls
                       dikes that feed brooks

                                                                                                                                                                                                rushy
                                                                                                                                                                                                flinthill
                                                                                                                                                                        hobson moss
                                                                                                                                                                                                emlin
                                                                                                                                                                                                agden
rocher end


faltering up      here     hear     shoulder to it                            
                        welter   welter up 
      
                                                                                
                        to fall    lowering                        under and through 
                                     learning mazy we are   winding tight                 through
windy
                          
banks and woods 

finding  their river        bashing on       white noise         their riverine                sanded soils               

becoming becoming
for flood           for saturating   mud     making            mud-making-raking 
meander
                                                                                                fluent mazy     but 
                        expecting nothing        forming 

                                         nothing but             carp & trout    flexing        to vex
            currents         
                                                                                          muscle moving 

                                                                                  pike’s

                                     false starts                  mallards and dippers pushing 
tonguing shoving         lick their            webbed            motor on          bellied up and

            up        through            water               and up             resting

                                                on stone                      the  river          closing 

                                      always closing (one whole note             we are  breve)  around            all                                            

lending surface           to branch         lean in\out

                     and bend down/out    sycamore        oak      willow               leaf
oh sing that again                   again

            fall to catch                  copper from green                  kingfisher

                       streak                         catch    catch               expecting nothing        formal


Agden
impressive reservoir structures        
belong to the kestrel

every start a false start in language 
                                         online, on the line, in the wet
            car park                                                          been coming here 50 years
                       stumbling         into it               
                                    quickly, quietly 
along edges
impressive reservoir structures         or some such
            victorian sureties dreaming of the gothic
            water storage                          popular, circular          out of the city
also search for            how long does it take              how deep
can you swim             
nothing but earache

            it was a wet day         but not blurry          looking up into 

the sound of beech leaves     batting back rain     still green leaves

                                     floating            vivacity against             invisible black           

a circuit of trees owned by mushrooms                   

mudbronze of windblown         on land 

            on water          drift into spandrels      between branches

bright spaces                         happen while you’re making something else

not for stamping on       not really there

          mandarins echo leaves          holding still          shelter sides          then whistle-grunting 
against            shock of their size                  sailing              mingle-meeting
            bathtime toys              waterlogging                colour the reservoir

on the ramp     cormorants     careful gothic impressive structures
          and egret                     almost regret                       impounding
how ancient is ancient                                        to lap false shore
                                                            is consonants scuffle

                CONFINED SPACE                         tiny figures
            SAFETY AND RESCUE                            dayglo workers
                        UNIT                                       on the dam wall

 

Sick Brook Diversion

          Smallfield Ridge           kestrel belonging                    
                                                            shining out ling, least expected

          low conifer enclosures             up to    fruitful tops      handstain of 
blackberries                     palm of bilberries    intricate on the tongue
scabbed crab apple enough to set a squirrel’s teeth on edge
                                           can an apple tree turn wild – once planted, how long
                                    must it live alone?

off the white-lined road            Agden Side                           they made it smooth 
for the peloton
                                           going becomes rough             stumbling over           
and a tumble in grace pulled back
                                    stones, brambles, roots, inner tubes 
pint glass sludged 

becoming immersed   immeasured unmeasured unlined,
          becoming clambering unclumbering, unsigned         

            there’s no sitting on a barbed wire fence         you have to decide      and level


            low fields, lands

this mild drifting wind      on which, come Spring
long quivering curlew calls
            lapwings piercing fall           wide turning wing                                   turning fall
spiral tumble       
                        pairing             warmth gathering in                                                  growing

            scabbled mud ridged and click of cloven hooves                   click and clatter
                        scobble and grabble for words                       the mind’s ear tunes and sounds
            blackbird song up      from the bowl of the bog, protected    held brook
                                                                                    emergent        

            as march’s sudden stillness               sudden winds  
                        image of orange behind          converging      webbed limbs
            kick under dark water pooled eyes unblink    long for air       move
                                    spawn into       birth pond         half-drowning
female grown & felled   amplexus     
ample   plex us
her gaze perplexes us             & her

       nuthatch high in old wood      calls clatter up roll the drome of the valley     air so much
air  & laced            calling cows and calves over   to feed    shouts dog
               to bring sheep to the pen     circled flock     refrains echo   counterpoint to bleat
             to         bleat                check over, let go in lambing field      ewe and ewe
and ewes  lost to flock            to flow white on
walled green    

                         lark fields, high fields   crag
                                     slabbed edged           single-track     path line, bird line, tree line to
moorland tit for finch to curlew lark               trace different air
                        sun scents pine bark       leans up          the way
it is underneath           coppiced          emergent

                                                  Church Farm
                                                West Nab
 
                                                their line
                                                and line                                               


            there’s no sitting on a barbed wire fence           you have to decide     and level
drain
unstone allstone

field the mess 
ruled out          ploughed & bled
gateways yanked wide           scream            diggers panzer in
unruly              stretchered out                       clubbed to baize 
and glyphosate          
axis of loss
is down
down               no counter thwart 
all warp no weft  
warp and warp

there’s no sitting on a barbed wire fence        you have to decide     and level

farmhouse a ruin and gappy  moss heart and bones hostage to

machinery died in harness     by the privy     nailed to another way of          housing lost
shards
in the old barn an owl box    
of another way of        closer every winter to the bank behind
pasture above  gone over, back to heath
                                                         young birches push        up through heather  light invisible
bark invisible
race you to the sky
take back take
back                                                                                                                          

you can see where he got tired, the old boy
from the state of the fields at the edge of the land,
right up to the
farmhouse

                                                         concentricity of being
                                                         is reach
scope

the widest ring                                                                                     the furthest
pastures
                                                         unknown then for years
                                                         decades

shrink back                 as growing back                   confirms          the first line
                                                                        inwards

& roughening
                                               weather           paces   ungrazing     its traces
for the kernel ungazing                                   away               
in
away           
in

                                    glazing             scoped over and out 
while older feet nudging                      the deepest     the tightest turn           fainter
spirals to this   at-last-of-being            

                                                                                  &
vanishing
point


at Lower Bradfield

water knot tangle       all down all change      meetwaters
greetwaters     to arc out         arc out             compass in      to Damflask


& Damflask

pike in the arms of men                      spill over 
forearms sure as        scratchy pullovers     
scales catch  his catch         snap this catch
all those colours retreat
in the gallery of blurred pride the       
gills’ catch at/snatch at 
                                    SOS in a cold dead eye
colours tinting themselves back
like underwater rising              no joke
eddies of it        aqua green      blue force of it
at his shoulder

pike unsinewed swims endlessly       into out of into
the fade of murk                                 
/who is/
back/forth
swing of light finds
drowned lintels                        of light
where someone is always
who ducks slowly                                                       of light
back/forth       

slips swift slow            ramp of shore             along to/come to                     test
true of the dam


into Loxley

wagtail flights & notes             wheels, weirs
                                               and crossings             opening
wide-opening             and walling      wailing  stone               scored            scarred scared
and  damming flow                  silting edge                  and

stilling  stealing fish                  stop                 shallow
                       to steep           steep               to the road
                       levered            shallow            spillway          
                        down               stream             to meet
Rivelin             at Malin            the Don          
the city      
                                         

 

Harriet Tarlo is a poet and academic. Her single author poetry publications are with Shearsman, Etruscan and Guillemot Presses and her artists’ books with Judith Tucker with Wild Pansy Press. She is editor of The Ground Aslant: An Anthology of Radical Landscape Poetry(Shearsman) and special features on ecopoetics for How2 and Plumwood Mountain. She is Professor of Ecopoetry and Poetics at Sheffield Hallam University. This collaborative text is part of a project initiated by our involvement in the interdisciplinary research network, ‘HydroSpheres’ (AHRC grant AH/T006056/1), exploring the potential roles for collaborative arts practices in new modes of landscape decision-making based in the River Don catchment around Sheffield, UK.

 

Kym Martindale: Until recently, I taught English and Creative Writing at Falmouth University, Cornwall, UK. I have given papers on Alice Oswald’s poetry, two of which, on Dart and ‘Not yet not yet’ from Woods. Etc., were later published in Process, Landscape and Text, eds. Catherine Brace and Adeline Johns-Putra, Rodopi (2010) and Identity and Form in Contemporary Literature, ed. Ana Maria Sanchez, Routledge (2013) respectively. I returned to my native Yorkshire, in the north of England, two years ago and have been busy rediscovering reservoirs through Hydrospheres, a tremendously moving and exciting journey. Much like rediscovering poetry.