Frome Song

By Jen Green:

Pressure pulls me through pores of limestone, feeling lighter and into daylight,
where I begin overground, and half underground, I spring 
under a sycamore tree, a quiet nursery and gently, I tumble crawl, 
feel my way, joined up puddles in a green grass pasture 
where sheep nibble and drink under shade, 
young trees protected by fencing Private Property Keep Out. 
I was privatised and constrained, landscaped into ponds and pools and 
frivolous cascades, under the eye of a house made of sugar,
slave sweat sugar, stolen. I slide away to hide in depth and shadow, I go slow, 
I go quiet, glide steady, covering up with thick threads of ivy, my presence 
in the fields is given away by water-willed willow trees. 
I am a little cloudy, which suits the crayfish tickling my mud bed, two signals 
on two claws, surface sinking. Cows come to cool off, mixing mud 
with their two toes, clearing plants to let light in, warming 
my shallow waters. I am the boundary between barley, 
I am not a straight line on the map of ownership, I give to one and 
take from the other.

The suburbs grew out to meet me and I had to be straight, 
like a drainage ditch roadside, houses set up aside me, 
mills were wheeling me, now I’m more leisurely.
In Yate, houses like to look at me, people like to sit by me, stroll by 
and check up on me: ‘Slow flowing.’ ‘Slow flowing? Not moving!’ 
It’s summer, heat has taken my water, sparkling vapour dissolved in sunlight, 
roots suck at me needy, midsummer mud bed drags. 
One day I won a game and kept the prize, a tennis ball no-one could find, 
and in the town a car tyre and many shapes of plastic.

Through Yate I go along my business by roads, by industry clanging, 
where trains go by whooshing, 3 children running, 
they sing ‘Don’t Worry, ‘bout a thing’. They make a camp and tell me secrets,
of flies and gnats, sunlight sets a prism in my whole depth, alights on stones, 
but only where trees allow - they take the rest. My constant companions; 
Alder Elder Ash and Hawthorn, Alder Elder Willow and Sycamore, 
I carry their leaves, sticks and seeds. 

I see the whole sky with my whole width, opening out through fields, through 
long gold grass, wild flower weeds, flames of red dock seeds. Picking up speed 
you can call me a river, I have river weeds. 
At Algars Manor I remember wheel buckets filling for milling, wheel turning 
for grinding, but today in pools I’m resting, lily pads blanket 
where I deep sleep, when I open an eye Kingfisher plucks out my fish, 
I feed them up and give them up.
Chirrup of swallows, hiccup of moorhen, Kingfisher fly my length.

Etching out a landscape, digging little valleys; move along material, 
make a home in sandstone, limestone, mudstone, old stone from old sediment 
drifted down in shallow seas, under earth for centuries, grain by grain 
released to me, carving a story.
In Huckford Quarry the rockface shows rock time, read time line by line, 
and I’ve only read a little. Stone by stone lifted into a railway, 
arches arches arches of viaduct vibrate each time a train tracks. 

I am the song in the woods, I sing to the trees a bass line plonck plonck, 
singing over stones; trickle tur-trickle plink and plumck. Pulling a vortex, 
pushing currents through, rolling a R. Light ripples reflections underside 
leaves in intervals, mirrors of green, trunks leaning in from banks bending, 
branches bow almost in, washing robin. 
Through villages, their private gardens, under bridges, 
Frenchay and Frome Vale.

A pile of bikes in summer holidays, a raft of children shallow splashing 
with feet wet and cool, the thrill of finding out. Fishing lines tease my fish 
in the calm before the weir. Hover fly squadrons stay stationary 
between bracken and bramble.
I used to turn the wheel at Snuff Mills for Snuffy Jack, tobacco 
all down his work shirt, greasing the axle, harnessing my horsepower of 12,
I was busy for a century pushing their machinery, pushing through 
their industry, quarry blasting, hammering and horses pulling barges 
of Pennant sandstone floated down to pave the town, 
under the noses of houses, under willow river fingers.

Sometimes I feel the flow of rain pushing through earth, pouring down 
from trees, over soil over grass, I have to pull myself up, push out, 
feel a freedom from routine, I’m blind with debris, mud and trees 
I can’t stop myself. Secret sluices reduce me, weirs slow me somewhat, 
looping arcs by Eastville Park, fish slip from otter’s twilight bite.

Lifted onto concrete I can’t speak as naturally as I like, can’t sink in, 
can’t think for myself, under motorway roar. Overlaid by another flow, 
another blue map line, strictly straight. 
Caged in fencing, attractive only to rubbish and rats. 
Skateboards roll on ramps.
Brass was made at Baptist Mills, I powered the work of 25 furnaces, 
crucibles combine copper and calamine, metal molten then beaten, 
making manillas as money for slaves, cargo stowed to Africa. 
There were Twinespinners and Flaxdressers, hemp in their hands, 
spinning strands, drawing a tension to strengthen fibres turned tighter, 
walked the Ropewalk by my water.

Pushed underground, diverted into culverts, echoes in darkness, 
Frome entombed. Paved over, unseen along with history, old walls where 
I used to crawl, sewage clogged coughing. 
I made the broad meadow moat of the long-gone castle. 
Forgotten under ‘River Street’ and under a deceit of fountains.
I hear scuffles of Bristol changing, the clang of Colston’s statue 
pulled down, rolled round like a 50 pence piece harbourside and slides in; Colston, his wealth from Black lives, terror traded over the seas. 
In harbour water I hear stories of other countries, I find a tide.

***

Jen Green is a writer based in Bristol, UK. Currently studying a Masters in Travel & Nature Writing at Bath Spa University, she explores the role that nature plays in people’s lives; of trees, parks and a view of the sky. Jen has a portfolio website at jencgreen.com