By: Kate Noble

Neptune, distracted, casts his merciful eye over a goodly realm and – held in
that instant – likes what he sees,
Wool-fat sheep aside angle-gnarled trees sprinkled through grey-grit peaks of bracken-brown slopes,
And passingly visions need of a watercourse ‘…to irrigate, refresh and balance these great bounties’.
So friend Fontus gently tickles under-chin a quiet moss-gill;
‘We need water to merge glisten-living droplets on a tumble-down journey
To become lakes and grow-flow onwards as a greater Irish Sea’,

So a newly charged spring sources itself high up in the hills.
And so pleased is God Neptune with the wellness of his creation that he forgets
To send down the oft unvoiced woven-through nature laws,
Which nurture the cosmos with restraining equilibrium.

So gurgle-merge water comes spilling forth, tripping itself up in eagerness to serve the spirit to which is was born
With power to put thirst and ill-health far behind, to sooth and cool the cutting stone, to grow the wheat, to protect gifting-life insects.
To its purpose clear and willing unswerving through towns, fields and homesteads
Create-crossing rivulets with cling-stone stories – stirring and humble, ancient and modern –
Seduce-dousing through pathways and increase-prospering its river-course.

And finding borrowed power growing as it joins surging forces, source-water spys it cannot make full stop.
Giddy-swishing and seeming uncaring where it touches and whether it now helps,
Channelling courses where it never was before, grike-carving, stone- breaking, root upending
It calls up new friends coursing exhilaration in the moment.
So brewing storm clouds quickly gather, zealous and keen to let rip
Grateful to release long-fermented moisture held heavy and cumbersome.

And Neptune looks back with concern at the scene swallowing up with flooding water-swell;
This was not the plan. The life-giving water now risking home, limb and livelihood;
Pondering his creation, seeing how he missed the governing tenets of care and concern,
He knows he must find something to right this serious wrong.

Now spring source-water reaches sea and grasps well it has pushed too far.
Tearfully unable to stop its deluge, submerging in shame and appealing for a kindly reclaimed power
It pleads to Neptune to let it go back and start again, to be only full of the goodness it started with
For help to send away the cruel clouds and rising fright-waters; avert their pain and suffering.

But rules cannot be changed so late, and Neptune can only create new law to balance malign water nature,
‘Oh spring waters you now forever share power for destruction and I can only temper this
Same-time dispelling grey-green clouds from overly discharging harm,
I henceforth pledge that at mountain high Eurus source-start and at salt-wave pebble-cliff Zephyr end
One of watchful four winds will forever remind-ruffle your moisture-rich crown expectant of bringing you back to your senses.’

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“Kate Noble’s professional life in disability advocacy has led to her keen interest in social justice, women’s issues, mental health and well-being. She is 51 years of age and lives north of Lancaster, England. She aims to produce a unique reading experience ‘waking up’ the mind whilst touching the soul.”