BETWEEN FOUR JUNCTIONS KATE GROOMBRIDGE

Bristol

Born in this city nestled between hills, nurtured by the tide of the Severn. The vibrant colours of town houses reflect in the dark waters of the harbour.

Echoes of the past all around. Lessons learnt and passed down. No more a slave port built on trade; a home for all has risen – phoenix from the flames.

The open green land of the Downs sees quidditch, fun runs, festivals and clowns, free speech and protests, along with naked bike rides and slides down Park Street, road closures for days of running, of rides. And tho’ 20 mph is sometimes a bind, this city of culture – green and eco –has so much to offer wherever we go: hospitals, universities, colleges and schools. Even the uneducated fools soon fall for the heady delight of Bristol by day, Bristol by night.

Jack Williams

River

River River. From Hafren’s heart the course carves through the furrowed veins of flooded fens; all mud, all morning blood sprung from a source of daring life. While flesh and fire descends in dance – there wedded with the tidal force, the dance-renewing waves, where life transcends the pulse of yearning flesh, of forms divine –the genius and river-flow entwine.

The deep Eridanus is whirling death, and yet the refugee of Troad embraced its stellar waves, purging his mortal breath. There, from the estuaries, the nations chase their tales. Tremors through the tumult-earth, where from the waves pours forth a star-born race of dreams. A form within a formless plan, outflowing against our deaths in myths of Man.

The phosphorus shores of charred Ulaya consume the centuries’ tears in warring fires. The Ganga flows from heaven’s tasselled hair, adorning all three worlds with funeral pyres. The brook of the Beautiful Lord was where, amid the mountains, Doomed Youth’s life expires, and blood divine discolours red the blue, till love (what else?) restores His life anew.