A single drip...
- Kate Morley
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
The drip shimmers in the emerging light. It falls to the ground made of clay. Which way will it go?
To the east, to drip, drip away. Into the combe to meet others, a flow started, it seeps through the voids and emerges through the bedrock and into the fern covered gullies.
The brook is formed and away it goes. Brook meets stream, stream meets river. The otters swim with purpose, their goal the gleaming scales of elusive prey.
Onwards past freshly gnawed trees from a newly returned friend who is busy creating pools and ponds to slow the flow, the noise of my passing triggering them, so they chew and pack branches to change the tone, and we pass by more calmly.
Onwards we go towards the sea. We are the Exe, we pass the mouth from fresh to salty as we carry cans and bottles, we know we've not always been this polluted and as the flow widens and deepens we remember the other journey we could have taken to the west.
If we had dripped to the west we would have passed through fords and weirs, kissing the granite boulders as we went, tumbling over archimedes screws, creating energy for these humans to use. Onwards passed mossy boulders we drift and carry along beech leaves and travel over re-created salmon spawning grounds. Gravel shaken and sorted in the hope of the return.
We are the Teign. Onwards and twisting and turning towards the gulls and the cries of the oystercatchers wading and probing at the edges.
As we come to the mouth and pass the deteriorating pier, a memory to the promises of fun and excitement now ravaged by our power and that of the wind. But as the waves crash today, a pod of dolphins swim past hugging the cliffs and caves shaped in a desert so long ago- a drip that fell so far away, combining with a force that can wither stone, we all endure.
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This piece and the villanelle below was written as part of a series of creative writing sessions that are being led by Dr Tanvir Bush and supported by Dr Sarah Bell of the Sensing Climate project. The series is called ‘The Elementals’, with each session guided by an elemental theme; Earth, Fire, Water, Air and Spirit. The above piece honours the fact that Longdown and Holcombe Burnell Parish have tributaries of both the River Teign and the River Exe that start in the parish, both of which were monitored by Kate as part of the Westcountry Rivers Trust CSI scheme which measures water quality and flow measurements
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From Drip to Storm- a villanelle
A drip falls so small and fleeting
The wind builds over the hills the air is shook
Combined to form a storm- giving a good beating
Lets pull and push in unison, together we form a wave
No place to hide, not even a sheltered nook
A drip falls so small and fleeting
We all move together- the weather is our slave
The dolphins glance ashore, not more than a cursory look
Combined to form a storm- giving a good beating
We move as one, no rules to make us behave
Let's tear it up, there is no rule book
A drip falls so small and fleeting
Who will be rescued, who will they save?
Extracted, polluted, a resource they just took
Combined to form a storm- giving a good beating
Power of togetherness we freely gave
Like passing shoals avoiding the nets- being let off the hook
A drip falls so small and fleeting
Combined to form a storm- giving a good beating
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