A River of Many Voices: poetry and prose

Writers in Ireland, Germany, the UK, and the US responded to my open call for writing related to rivers and water. You can read some of the poems and prose below.

Bus passengers in Ireland’s South-East also got to enjoy the creative texts. Warm thanks to Damien and team at Transport for Ireland in Dungarvan for sharing the printed works.

Enjoy….

-Kathryn Mary Crowley, January 22nd, 2026.

Water Flow by Doryn Herbst

Rain that skirts down,

the sleet, the hail, the snow,

bathe waiting leaves,

seep through soil to stony layers,

burble as a spring.

Rains that zigzag across land

make rivers travel far

to the tangy, briny seas.

That which hasten over hill,

roof and road and alley

can rowel a stream

to spring its banks.

Water rising from the scrub,

rising from the tangy seas

makes the sleet, the hail, the snow,

the rain come sprinting down.

Two Cardinals by Leo Vanderpot

Symbols of life’s threats: 

steady on a branch at river’s side.

Paused 

on their shared search for food.

Alert as only they can be

         to what the snow denies them —

         hawks see red vividly

        on today’s white background.

       Two

       challengers to Darwin’s theory

       re the survival of the fittest.

Paired, 

and just as smart and alertly protective 

as they are bang-on proudly beautiful.  

        Her to him: “Never let them see you sweat.”

Testing the Water by Mark Cassidy

A flow we seek to capture, 

bridge or channel, yet cannot confine.

Lithe as mercury, slipping fingers, 

it is held in brush-stroked cloud 

and then let fall, rattling on rooftops.

Pools, unstirred, collect

the tension of drip, drip droplets:

mirror-flat, refract our point of view,

reveal all kinds of surface.

Of running water, folklore says

that no enchantment can survive it.

To know the end you go to, be the stream,

not a stick that’s spun at source.

Ride the impulsive rapids to middle-age

meandering, no cataracts in sight.

At the delta of days, silt-laden

reach the surf; then fathomless beyond

swim until you see no land.

Brackish Water by Carmel Smith

Trickling rills

Babbling brooks

And weaving streams, converge

Seeping through stagnant dams

Rippling over sediment, pebbles and rocks

Rushing, gushing, passing boulders

          Falling 

                    Into

                          Rapids

Spraying earthy scent while glistening skin

Near sandy banks of lapping spume

Where brackish water meet

Meandering currents

In turbulent borderlands

Among migrating nesting grounds

And roosting, resting sounds

Nourishing, flourishing seas 

On ebb ……………   and flows of life

Early Man by Aoife Ahmed

I know the world before it wakes, My little 

One, the empty fields and beaches. 

The land before time, the land after. 

Our Eden created from the sensation 

Of gentle waves, gulls, chill air. 

Footprints in damp sand

Seaweed vibrant green and dun, 

The thousand nameless colours of 

The Atlantic between green and blue. 

Your childish babble as you lift rocks

My world above you before you make them

Splash back down where all life began.

Glencar by Diarmuid Fitzgerald

The wooden gate hits against the post

due to these fierce autumn winds. 

The path wanders left, then right.

A stream flows over a rough bed 

of brown, yellow, and red stones.

A carpet of moss hangs from the cliff 

like a rough tapestry. The waterfall

is a torrent, crashing into hard rocks,

cutting through and fracturing them.

I drive on mountain roads at a fast pace 

to free my mind from the cascades 

of arguments with myself, family and friends.

The stream falls down the cliff and is blown 

back into the sky. Fog grows thicker, 

obscuring the mountain from my view.

The River Flows On by Kate Butler 

A gentle trickle, emerging from the ground like a baby’s first cry. With a toddling step, it moves tentatively over rocks and stones, a newly carved bed for future hopes.

The meandering bends and rushing force, excited to run, to play, to see the possibilities of life. The river flows on.

Rushing faster, faster over stone and weir— a fast-paced life, with no time to hear. Each breath is measured on the last, until the water’s strength grows still.

Gentle moments now, a slow current, a soundless motion. Looking back on trickling streams and gushing weirs, stillness ends.

All becomes one in the vast horizon of the seas. For now, and evermore, the river flows on.

Water Baby by Julie Goo

Water Baby

I could have gobbled you up 

in your splish splash happiness

rubber ducky and floods of suds

a cuteness overload, fat folds of olive skin 

on frollicking limbs and for my favourite bit, 

wrapping you in a towel tortilla, kissing those 

bubble cheeks, inhaling the wonder of you, 

stealing a squeeze.

These days I bring you strong cups of tea 

as you study for the ardteist, I feed you dumplings 

and tut tut at the damp towels on your bedroom floor.

I melt when you join me on the couch

rest your head on my shoulder,

all worries spiral down the drain.

September 19th 2006 by Michael O’Connor

This day I strike out west from Inisbofin
Not knowing how far or where I’ll go.
This day I take the things you gave me:
Belief in goodness, poetry, endurance.
The seas are rough and I’m alone.
You’re back in Murray’s by the fire.
Your work is done. Your Crombie’s
Steaming on the back of a chair.
You can see waves, as in a silent movie,
Breaking on High Island far away.
Your race is run. You’ve handed me the baton.
I’m heading west and I’m alone.

The Lonesome Boatman  by Grainne Daly

T’was a decent aul pedicure in fairness. Aggie, inside in the spa in Doolin, is the business and sure lookit, what else would you be spending your money on of a dull Winter’s day only lounging about inside in the warmth. Shellac is the new Prozac I think I heard someone say. Let me tell you what else would put a pep in your step only a seaweed bath. Now, I do like to have the seaweed baths without the seaweed ‘cause I have an aul allergy to Bladderwrack but do I ask Aggie to throw in a few little mermaids when she’s filling it, and sure you’d hardly know the difference. The mermaid’s tails are slippery as saucy pasta and with all their sloshing in the water, sure they feel just as soft as seaweed. And I’ll tell you this much–the bubbles they churn give the feel of a jacuzzi with the whirlpools reaching parts of me I forgot were reachable. Before the Prozac and long before the beautician came to Doolin.

Only yesterday didn’t she fill my bath and wheel me out onto the cliff path and there she parked it and in I got with a nice Merlot and a book of poetry. Paula Meehan it was. Every bit as rich and delicate as the wine that didn’t last too long. The poems made the wind down and the rain ceased and for a few moments and at one point I even thought that she was in the bath with me–Paula Meehan that is. I thought I saw her lift her porcelain body from the swell and perk her scales on the side of the bath facing Moher. I could have sworn I heard her incant ‘The Well’ in mesmerising Dublinese. I heard her say,

“I know this path by magic not by sight. 
Behind me on the hillside the cottage light 
is like a star that’s gone astray.”

And then I was submerged. I was seeping in words and water and the whirly wash of mermaids who refused to sit still. They kept moving and in their movement I started to see again. There was colour. There was Dazzling Damson shellac. And a rubber duck the colour of egg yolk. And I could hear something else. A sweet melody. A honey-sweet tune that hopped uninvited into the bath with me and set the bubbles a-flowing again and the mermaids dancing and my knees jigging to the pulse. The session was on in O’Connor’s and I could never resist the call of The Lonesome Boatman. 

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