To My Silver Lady

 

 

We were young once, you and me.

I remember your birth. Torn from Mother Earth’s womb, yours was no clinical beginning. Crude rapacious machinery hungry for each gobbet of soil clawed at the ground, loading the topsoil to leave behind hillocks of sand and gravel which became my playground. A make-believe battleground for war games, an assault course to hone the leg muscles. A cycle track long before BMX bike parks and mountain bikes were thought of. A source of ubiquitous fossilised belemnite’s calcitic guards strewn randomly like stone bullets in the aftermath of some apocalyptic gun battle. We even used the sand to make cement. 

When Gaia’s waters broke you were the product. At first stained brown with frothy, dust laden bubbles, but as the sediment settled you changed to a crystal-clear life-giving resource for many.

Your waters flowed from south to north then west. Steep sided but narrow of channel, your silver bright surface sparkled and twinkled in the sunlight like the eyes of a coquettish maiden who knows perhaps more than she should.

At first you were barren of life, then the water boatmen, diving beetles and other airborne fauna were soon attracted to your beauty, as was I. Waterweed introduced on the feet of waterfowl or wafted in on a gentle breeze transformed your depths into a submerged aquatic jungle, whilst terrestrial plants fringed your vulnerable naked flanks to cover the scars left by the mechanical diggers.

The first to arrive were the early-colonising ephemeral weeds of newly disturbed ground such as Fat Hen, with goosefoot-shaped leaves, drab green, iron rich.  Then came the daisy-like mayweeds, profuse with flowers and foliage that made a comfortable palliasse for the dens that I built in the hollows of the sand hills within which I could lie by your side. And now a full suite of plants protects your nude modesty from the leering gaze of those that cannot see your true beauty. 

Damselflies and dragonflies skim and hover above you, admiring their reflections. Nimble predators of the skies, the dragonflies often perch on a sentinel post with wings outstretched like a spitfire plane awaiting its next call to scramble to protect its territory. Skirmishes with competitors are frequent but short-lived with a susurration of clashing wings before returning, over and over, to their chosen vantage point.

Many days have I spent netting small fish and tadpoles in your waters. Minnows and sticklebacks captured and transferred to jam jars for closer inspection but returned at the end of the day. I have watched entranced as caddisfly larvae waddled around on your sandy bed, carrying their homes on their backs built with small sticks, pebbles and other detritus that acts as both house and deception; for who takes any notice of a heap of rubbish? Even if it is moving uncannily around apparently under its own volition. Sometimes I would be accompanied by my pals Bob and Peter on these expeditions. True companeros even now. I never perceived them as rivals for your love. Your beauty knew no bounds and your bounty was freely given to all. No need for jealousy, I trusted you unquestionably.

Attracted by the small fry, predatory pike moved in. With their cryptically marked bodies they lay in wait for their prey, perfectly camouflaged against the submerged weeds and benthic substrate. From their sedentary hover with barely a perceptible stabilising flick of their fins to betray them they are capable of astounding from a standing start. I often observed just a whirlpool eddy of disturbance to signal where I startled a pike to make its Le Mans starting grid getaway. On other occasions eye-to-eye contact confirmed the pike was watching me watching it, with its narrow-tapered dolphin shaped head giving it a rather cruel shark like expression. Amazingly in your narrow, shallow waters they could grow to over two feet or more in length.

I have sought your company in all weathers. Skating on your ice-bound body listening for a warning creak or crack to signal that this was an indignity you were not prepared to accept. In deep snow I have admired your beauty from a different perspective, your contours demurely accentuated by a mantle of pristine white, like a bride on her wedding day. On hot summer days I have walked your banks slowly and sedately, listening for a lazy munching sound where water voles sit on their haunches chewing a reed stem. I never hear those sounds now.

As we both grew older our love remained chaste. I gave you my sweat and blood, the latter from cuts inflicted by the silica-tipped edges of the sedges that grew at your margins. Never were there tears. Your constancy was accepted with trust and you never gave me cause for tears. For your part I frequently parted from you to the syncopating rhythm of your water squelching in my saturated socks after you playfully overwhelmed my boots. My mates called me top heavy as most days I emerged sopping wet from your depths. But you and I both know that it was my sense of adventure and exploration that pushed me beyond the norms of common sense and it was a game  that we were both happy to play.  

Or was your playfulness a cover for something else? Were you trying to tell me something? Perhaps not to enter too deep into a relationship that had its barriers? That as we grew older our paths would diverge. Yours of course limited and defined by the linear confines of your banks, but beyond that lay the wider rivers and ultimately the sea and wisely you knew that during that journey you would change and our childhood friendship could not continue for ever? Or was it perhaps some darker message you were trying to convey? That not all water bodies are to be trusted. That danger lurks beneath their placid beauty. Alas I learnt that message too late to save my other true love. I brought her to see you once.  She is now gone forever, drowned one dark December night.  I should have listened to you harder, payed more attention, but in my defence, I plead the impetuousness of youth and I did not possess the gift of scrying.

I sometimes still visit you when I am in the neighbourhood and I will continue to do so when I can and for as long as I am able. Do you miss me?  Ostensibly, you look much the same. The channel remains intact and so on you go in much the way you have since your birth 60 years ago. But somehow like me, you look older, tired, and worn from the ravages of life. Your waters are more eutrophic now.  The product of nitrate and phosphate run offs from intensive farming practices. Obscene clumps of blanket weed float in putrescent mats on your surface blocking light for the plants below. Water vole burrows are still visible at your water’s edge, but the species has suffered a catastrophic decline in the past 25 years or so. You will be pleased to know I have created a new haven for them where I live now, and they have recently moved in so there is still hope for “Ratty.” I thank you for instilling in me that love and respect for a much-misunderstood rodent.

So old friend, may your silver ribbon continue to brighten the countryside, sustaining the biodiversity of life as it flows to the sea.

You will remain after I am gone but even you will not live forever. The avarice of man has taken many like you and culverted them to greedily pluck another few metres of growing land or widen a carpark. The pursuit of mammon is a real threat, but I will watch over you while I can and when I am gone who will protect you? There will be rainbow warriors who will take up the call and I wish them well against the relentless destruction of our beautiful world.

In the meantime, watch out for me, I will visit you soon, for how can I forget my childhood friend and companion? Ever constant, yet paradoxically, ever changing too. You revealed many of your secrets to me during my visits and I know that you had many more if only I had spared the time. However, as a boy changes to a man he must inevitably move on but in doing so I never forgot you and I am still here for you.

Steve Parnwell