80,000 Gallons to a lock

Luke Kennard

Skipton to Greenberfield, 2016

In the roar of 80,000 gallons to a lock The engine thrums through my bones from ankle to temple.

I am an antenna channeling a past I cannot know. 40 tonnes of coal via wheelbarrow

on a single plank, the bargeman’s equilibrium.

I wonder if he read the first signs of the freeze, windlass in his hand, weighty and balanced As a murder weapon or a perfect line.

Behind the reeds a scrawny cat shadow boxes with a swan and in the roar of 80,000 gallons to a lock,

I wouldn’t listen for your voice because we’d live together in the hull; I’d wait to feel your hand upon my back,

your light step from land to deck and back again. I wonder if the bargeman saw

The dandelions scattered in the un-grazed fields like I do: city lights from an aeroplane; Or if, to him, they looked like lanterns in distant inns,

Or shrapnel glowing in a battleground. The same seagulls pinwheel round the plough and all that’s really changed is the machine.

Today’s Flickr photo with the most hits was uploaded only this afternoon: it was taken yesterday afternoon on one of my Covid-19 walks along the Leeds-Liverpool Canal  - between Bank Newton and Gargrave. The photo shows the top lock at Bank Newton just after a narrowboat had transited.

I love a little narrowboat

Pam Ayres - a comedic poet with a light and familiar touch

I love a little narrowboat, I love the old canal, Imagining the tales these ancient waterways could tell, I love to work the lock, those oaken gates so firm and strong, With know-alls up above to tell you what you're doing wrong. I love to see the native creatures busy at the bank, The otter and the water vole, the terrapin and mink, And peering in the water, into shallows green and still, To see somebody's goldfish from the kitchen window-sill. I love to moor along the bank and hear the gentle rain, To cook a meal and watch the world beyond the window-pane, Little bobbing moorhen chicks, the mallard and the coot, Exhausted lovers hoping that their effort's bearing fruit. I love the ancient bridges, every keystone, every corbel, The singing of the little birds, the chirrup and the warble, To feed a lonely swan, so perfect, white as alabaster, Who struck me with his wing; observe my collar-bone in plaster. I love to meet the other folk who use the waterways, The walkers and the fishermen on sunny languid days, We drift beside the towpath and we breathe the summer's breath, Till roaring motor-bikers come and frighten us to death. I love the inland waterways and if it's in my power, I'll just keep on a-sailing at about three miles an hour, And when I see that final tunnel, into it I'll glide, I'll raise my yachting cap and see you on the other side.