Arrival
Standing, I take one panning video of the river, left to right
Then sit at eye level with brambles, restricting my view
Like being in a cheap seat
At the theatre
Listening
Sounds of the Severn, small dancing waves
Running, apparently towards the sea
But not for long
Pigeons coo, sparrows twitter their replies
Witnessing
A blister of waves bursts over the sandbank
Exposed to bright light
Sun glare blinding.
Hard to look
Retinas narrow to focus, see the distant
Church spire in Westbury, like a sharp needle
Piercing the skyline
Bright green grass on the other bank
Low clouds forming, chilly wind rising
Twinkling sparkling
Water on sand spits
Distance
The boats at Bullo, masts leaning
Distant dark shapes, sitting solid on sand
A seal? A surfer? A lump of wood?
A body?
A pool of water catches my eye on the bend
A wave? No, the riverbed is still dry near Awre
No incoming tide
Yet
Light
Lights on lights off
Clouds filter the sun – a sole surfer glides past
Sitting, he rides the river flow, to later return
On the cusp of the bore?
Colour
To the left the sandspit looks burnt umber now
With a chrome white line of foam
Defining it against the steely cold water
Then the sun blooms, the ochre colours break through mirrored
By wet sand pools
Patterns
To the right, the riverbed is like a sandy beach
Shadows of clouds drawing bar codes across it
My eyes scan it, while my ears register
The water getting louder
The black lump is still down there near bullo
The wind whips the water up
The bushes quiver towards the sea
Three more surfers enter
Surfers
From the opposite bank, two surfers carry boards
On their heads, the walk together
The other grips his tightly
Under his arm
Filming
Standing, I notice there are a couple of people on opposite bank
And the sandbank below the river bank at Newnham has wonderful ripples in it,
Each tiny crevice highlighted by the sun as it rises
The pigeons coo
There’s another black lump in the distance to the left of me
I keep glancing to my right
Checking out the bend where the bore
Will appear
Waiting
Nothing yet, on the left
A single duck naively (or knowingly)
Glides on the rivertide
The cliff ducks are wiser
They hangout behind the undercliff below Ruddle
Listen and watch when the wave approaches
As they fly out from behind the bushes
Quacking and flapping
If they don’t rise fast they run the risk
Of being battered against the cliff
Recent rockfall has left spliced slabs of red clay and tea green marl
Evidence of climate change
The ducks have learnt to survive
We have not done so well
Time
Is trapped here in stone
Breaking up in front of me
Rocks like squashed sandwiches
Compressed in a lunch bag
Separating them, I notice
Each layer is different
More waiting
Most the surfers are now out of sight, probably behind the cliff
With the ducks
The sun on my face is soothing
The clock chimes nine
The bore timetable lists the bore arrival as nine-o-seven
Time to pour my coffee
Time, it’s all about time
Waiting, passing
Dandelion clocks witness my flask
As it performs as a sundial
My body does too
The sun locates me in the world
On the ground, in the air, by this river
Two more surfers arrive
Lateness
Are they late, or the others early?
Or misinformed?
Another surfer arrives, whose board looks bigger than the others
It has a fin on it
He walks with a swagger
Still no wave
A tardy bore
Two more surfers come along
The first throws down his board
And runs back to the bank
He’s fetched another!
He leaves the first one, its blue, on the sand
He drags a golden board along and joins the other
Surfers gathered on the opposite bank
A white line is forming near the bend
On the west side
Four more surfers arrive, three with boards, one empty handed
The fourth lifts the blue one up under his arm
It looks heavy and hard to carry
Imminence
The white breaker edge has dissipated
The body of water is holding the shore behind the cliff
Out of sight
Four more surfers enter the shallow river, sitting on boards
Soon the wave will whip out from behind the cliff
There are no ducks
Yet
Arrival
As the wave gets closer I abandon my keyboard and stand to video
As I film, a skein of ducks flies out from behind the cliff
So predictable
Several surfers stand up, and stay up, for a while, all whooping and howling
The wild side of life let loose
My smile widens
The joyous relationship between humans and water never fails to delight
Afterswell
To surf safely you need to know and understand the river
It’s a social and cultural experience
As I film, my neighbour arrives (you may spot her ducking from the camera!)
As we talk, both keeping one eye on the tide, neither of us apologises when, intermittently, one points and comments on the waters progress
Our meeting here is incidental, our sole purpose is to see the bore
As the spectacle passes us by, the surfers tumble off one by one, then clamber out onto the banks on both sides
She points to the spire and tells me she was brought up by the river
Her mum worked at the thermometer factory in Newnham
A friend of theirs drowned in the river
Her mother used to sit by the river with colleagues as a young girl, having their lunchbreak
The river keeps flowing by
Getting deeper and deeper
All is well
As it always has been
Carolyn Black 