Well Met
April 2025

5-Star Bore

Felicity Teague

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The heron knows, perhaps? He seems to wink
before he launches into long-legged flight,
the river mirroring his greys; the pink
of feet is startling in the sombre light
this morning. Drizzle, damp. But still the crowds
are here, with eager eyes and lenses aimed
downstream. It’s even darker there. Black clouds
hang languorously, rumbling and untamed...

A shout: “It’s coming!” Suddenly a froth
of white on either side rears up. “Get back!”
A father’s warning. Hissing sounds, the wrath
of tide, two metres high, advance, attack!
And riding it, a line of surfers, sleek
in wetsuits, cresting, kayakers as well;
the banks give up their deadhead sedges, weak
then vanquished in the surge of Severn swell.

The aftermath is churning water, mud
and broken limbs, the fallen from a storm
that swept the county, roaring fit to flood
two years ago. Another warring form,
but now I hear the surfers’ shouts and smile,
imagining the rush through salt and spray
until the weir, just past the twentieth mile,
before the bore turns, back to Sharpness Bay.

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The Day the River Hides Within It

John Claiborne Isbell

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Gulls at the bridge. “The city never sleeps,”

they say, and it is light at 3 a.m.,

in June in Warsaw. Bells are telling all

the faithful what the hour is. And below

the river bridge, the sun has caught the day

the river hides within it. To the pulse

of water headed northward come the sharp

incisions of the gulls, that lift and wheel

and plunge again toward the light. A stray

car hums across the bridge. It’s very early,

but birds are early risers. And the town

is massed beside the Vistula, as if

its contract with the mermaid were in force.

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John Claiborne Isbell is a writer and now-retired professor currently living in Paris with his wife Margarita. Their son Aibek lives in California with his wife Stephanie. John’s first book of poetry was Allegro (2018); he also publishes literary criticism, for instance An Outline of Romanticism in the West (2022) and Women Writers in the Romantic Age (April 2025), both available free online. John spent 35 years playing Ultimate Frisbee and finds it difficult not to dive for catches any more!

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Fliss: Welcome, John, and well met! Thank you for sharing your poem. It’s interesting that both poems are about rivers, though there’s quite a distance between the Severn and the Vistula. I wrote my poem in late March 2024, and it was inspired by the particularly large tidal surge that had happened earlier in the month. Does your poem come from a significant time?

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John: Hail, Fliss, and well met! You are most welcome. Yes, there is a fair distance between the Severn and the Vistula! My poem was written about four years ago, when we happened to be passing through Warsaw. I am reminded that I wrote it around 3 a.m., though it was already light!

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Fliss: That’s an interesting time to write, John. Do you usually write at 3 in the morning? I think my favourite time is 3 in the afternoon! The poems also have birds in common, I note, though I have just one heron here, who leaves rather early, as it turned out.

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John: It is unexpected, isn’t it? I often get up early; this was very early, but then, it was getting light. And yes, I remember the gulls above the river. Warsaw is some way from the sea. The city is home to a great many pigeons. One also sees sparrows hopping about café tables and so forth. I don’t recall seeing a heron – there are no wetlands in the area that I know of, to wade in – but there are storks, I feel certain, and the occasional hawk. There are storks across northern Europe. Birdlife is plentiful!

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Fliss: That’s great to know, John. We appreciate birdlife at Well Met! I love the movements of the gulls through your poem, and also their sounds amidst the bells. I must admit, I hadn’t heard of a contract between Warsaw and a mermaid, though. Please could you explain?

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John: Ah! That’s the legend of the Warsaw mermaid. She was the daughter of King Baltyk, who ruled in an amber palace beneath the Baltic Sea. Fishermen saw her and fell in love; they made a deal with her and thus Warsaw was founded. She has statues in the town.

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Fliss:​ How fascinating, John; I’m interested in mermaid legends, and an amber palace sounds like a pleasant sort of abode! I might have to look into this. But let’s touch briefly on meter now. In common with my poem, this is pent, I think?​​​

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John: You are quite right, Fliss, this is iambic pentameter, Shakespeare’s favorite meter – “Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?” for instance. I particularly like the idea of a royal amber palace on the sea bed, it sounds lovely!

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Fliss: Well, we should visit! I’m looking forward to finding out more about the legend, possibly beginning here. Thanks for your note on the meter, John, and we eagerly await further adventures next month at WM! In the meantime, readers interested in learning more about the Severn Bore might like to make a start here.

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With thanks to Editor George Simmers of Snakeskin.

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