Summer Bright

Lady of the summer heat,
Summer Bright, life of this vale,
I walked within your summer dream
when your streams shone bright
from syke to glittering estuary.

I worshipped at your golden streams,
borne like solder from the burning ground.
Amidst the flowers and bumble bees
I downed my honeyed draught
and laughed with the leaping fish.

And the world will never be the same.
They panned for the fish. All the bees
flew away. They fractured
earth’s hot core and spilt her ore,
bringing about these dark and final days.

Belisama, Summer Bright
your name shall be invoked again
on a midsummer’s night, beside
a golden stream, yet in this life
your dream may not be seen.

~

Changing Queen

Belisama, changing queen
Of the Ribble’s shining waters
Shaper of the dales and plains,
Towns and cities and their dreams.

A sparkling sight of sweet repose
You speak serenely under daylight
Shallows shifting playful hint
At beauties strange as subtle tides.

Your hurtling force rocks roaring stones
When fair folk blow their horns at midnight
Enigmas flow in endless throes
Your current’s drowning change or die.

Changing queen of transformation
Streams unite within your basin
Bridges cross- worlds in collision
Town and dale and rushing dream.

~

Ribblesdale

Horton, Stainforth, Langcliffe, Settle,
Gisburn, Sawley, Chatburn, Clitheroe,
Mitton, Ribchester, Penwortham, Preston,
Born on your water, grew up in your dale.