The Ballinderry River
Even today, poets are motivated by the Ballinderry River.
This is nowhere better demonstrated than in this poem,
composed by Maura Johnston,
a local poet from the village of Moneymore.
The Ballinderry River
Camlough, that calm lough, fringed with reeds,
Lies secret in the quiet hills of Tyrone.
There, among cobweb-crocheted whins, with
A sudden spring,
A sighing gurgle -
The river’s begun.
Plaiting and purling, silkily sliding - the water wanders along.
Tinkling and wrinkling, rumbling and tumbling – this is the river’s song.
Placid it passes through Dunamore, ranunculus
Drifting over the pearl-musselled gravel bed.
A heron hefts itself into the sky; an otter lithely
Insinuates itself into tangled riverside weeds.
Plaiting and purling, silkily sliding - the water wanders along.
Tinkling and wrinkling, rumbling and tumbling – this is the river’s song.
Wellbrook, and the weight of wheel and weir and years
Curls and whirls in the boulder buttoned flood
That, hiding speckled trout and snub nosed dollaghan,
Slips on past Cookstown, cradling salmon parr and smolt.
Plaiting and purling, silkily sliding - the water wanders along.
Tinkling and wrinkling, rumbling and tumbling – this is the river’s song.
Below Big Bridge and Coagh Bridge fishermen cast and hope
And muse, as feather, leaf, twig drift lazily past,
Twirl into the merging dark Lissan Water,
Swirl as the river surges through Ballinderry,
Under the footgo, into Lough Neagh at last.
Plaiting and purling, silkily sliding - the water wanders along.
Tinkling and wrinkling, rumbling and tumbling – this is the river’s song.
Maura Johnston
November 2007
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