I come to your banks with reverence,

in the green serene of your cool stream

Gravel beds where golden trout lie

Waving carpets of crowfoot,

lime green with starry flowers

In shade of alder, grayling ripples a sailed fin,

holding herself in your current

Crystalline water, transparent to stony bed

Nothing is hidden and all is mysterious

Gushing from mother earth’s deep aquifers,

you come from the very source of all

Being in your pristine flow is a balm,

harking to the beginning of days

I am full and complete, spirit replenished 

Offering pilgrimage to our original nature

Once and future river of dreams,

you are life itself, flowing

You are older than England, ever fresh, 

a treasure far too precious to be lost, 

to live only in old people’s fond memories 

I wrote this poem as my contribution to support https://chalkstreampoet.net/,  an initiative to draw attention to the plight of our chalk streams. 

Chalk streams are one of the rarest habitats on Earth and almost all are found in England (224 out of a global total of 260 are in England)

True chalk streams emerge from springs rising from chalk downland. Rainfall filters through the chalk bedrock to emerge crystal clear and full of minerals and nutrients, creating an exceptionally rich and unique habitat brimming with plant and animal life. The very pure water gushing from these chalk aquifers is unusual in remaining at a fairly constant temperature year-round. 

Now, however, our chalk streams are in deep trouble. Threatened with over-abstraction of their water, with some running dry in summer, together with pollution from water companies and industrial agriculture runoff, many chalk streams are now unrecognisable – flowing thick and brown with sediment, or dried up, with plummeting numbers of plant and animal species.

For many people chalk streams are the quintessential image of the English countryside. I have loved walking along chalk streams for many years, especially along the River Itchen in Hampshire, one of the most celebrated chalk streams and one which has so far escaped major destruction. 

All the photos here were taken by me on walks along the river Itchen