There were none. Just a ten mile
dry stretch all the way to when
50s housewives baked them a la mode,
thanks to Hydropower on the Tummel.
Geography S1 made sure we knew
our rivers worked for us and only us,
click clack whir of projector,
a clipped Oxbridge voiceover (male)
engulfs the Great Glen, preaches the wonder
of control, filled kettles, twin tubs.
If someone died on East Enders
we pushed a button and the water flowed,
forgetting dead gravel mountains,
sudden floods over exposed bedrock
and how, at the Struan Weir,
we kept out the migrant fish
for their own good.
Sixty sea winters later,
the gates are opened to old miracles.
Liquid webs run back
to their mother, stones tremble
and the river shrugs, ready
for flick of alevins in spring,
before the ocean pulls them
to their silvering.
(In 2017, the River Garry in Perthshire was “rewatered” for the first time in 60 years)
Morag Smith
Morag Smith’s poetry has been published in magazines and anthologies, including Poetry Ireland Review, The Scotsman and Gutter. She was commended in the Ginkgo ecopoetry prize in 2021 and shortlisted for the Bridport prize in 2022. Her first pamphlet, Background Noises, was published by Red Squirrel press in November 2022.