I was asked to perform at Liskeard Library so Wendy and I searched for somewhere to stay over the weekend where we could take our ageing housecat, Licky. We found this artists studio at a place called Trekeivesteps (AI usually asks me what language this word is written in!) which is a short walk from Siblyback Lake and the Golitha Falls. This was Licky’s first and last holiday with us and she enjoyed having a little wander round the woods that were not too far from our front door. It was such a beautiful, peaceful place that I just sat by the river and thought about writing this poem.

TREKEIVESTEPS, (RIVER FOWEY, CORNWALL)

At the place where the River Fowey takes a bend

To pass beneath the ancient three-pillared bridge,

With its original capstones rimed in orange lichen,

There is a calm pool created by a half-hearted weir,

Cobbled long ago to some industrial purpose, no doubt,

Where the river quietly waits its turn to proceed.

Beneath the still surface, comb-overs of water dropwort

Are given-up ghosts now gone with the flow,

While above them, petals of May blossom

Process by, languid and funereal, as if

Awaiting a drowned Ophelia in the duckweed.

The cat’s cradle of moss-enveloped branches

Are the green sleeves of tight-fitting cardigans

That cantilever over the busy water-boatmen who

Ferry like gondoliers across their tiny Grand Canal.

A dipper dips and ten ducklings, out with their mother,

Negotiate the snarl-up of wind-culled branches

That congregate around the bridge’s most easterly pillar.

This is a golden time in the Cornish spring, as I sit

Surrounded by primrose banks, marsh marigold,

St John’s wort, celandine, variegated yellow archangel

And above me, the rampant gorse, the Cornish eythin,

Studs the huge earthwork that shoulders Siblyback Lake.

With the percussive river’s accompaniment

Woodwind sounds – bullocks lowing, sheep bleating

And birdsong high in the ivy-veiled, sun-stippled treescape,

Of which the tiny but stentorious chiff-chaff,

Proudly bearing his clotted-cream breast,

Is by far the noisiest section in this Cornish birdland.

©graylightfoot