It's all about the aqueduct!

This week, three poems all inspired by the same location - the aqueduct at Garstang where the Lancaster Canal passes over the River Wyre.  Compare, contrast, but - most importantly - enjoy.

 

Aqueduct

It’s not in watercourses’ nature, crossing one another

so Rennie pulled a rope of water taut, to let the Wyre

glide beneath and wriggle down to greet the sea.

And, if he hadn’t, the canal perhaps would form a dam

backed up with centuries of rain to make the plain

a lake enough for the moon to take a midnight swim in.

Norman Hadley

 

 

 

Titan

 

Mighty titan hewn from stone,

feet planted solid on each bank.

Salt stalactites, cold knives hung from his belly.

Twelve wooden steps curve upwards round his form,

Inviting to ascend to shoulder height.

A purr of diesel power

confuses human senses.

The giant sputters in his sleep?

 

Stretching into middle-distance,

straight and true,

along the titan’s outstretched arms

a mirage waterway appears.

Bobbing wooden barges

bright in primary hue,

mallards trailing in their wake.

The traveller peering from his collar

sees the river surging to the sea.

An Intersection for adventurers.

Inland my love or on to destiny?

 

Adele V Robinson

 

 

 

Crossflux

 

X marks the spot

in Garstang on Wyre,

where water passes over water.

A rare enough feature

gives cause to consider

how like a drawing

by MC Escher

[fittingly, son of a civil engineer]

this construct by which

artifice mirrors nature

and is reflected back therein;

not a crossroads exactly,

more a liquid geometry:

underflow with overtow -

canal atop and river below.

 

Steve Rowland