Lifted by Jo Bell. You can also see film.

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LIFTED

Lock 30, Trent & Mersey Canal            

The land says – come uphill: and water says
I will. But take it slow.

A workman’s ask and nothing fancy –
Will you? Here’s an answer, engineered.            

A leisurely machine, a box of oak and stone;
the mitred lock, the water’s YES.

We’re stopped. The bow bumps softly
at the bottom gate, and drifts.

All water wants, all water ever wants,
is to fall. So, we use the fall to lift us,

make of water its own tool, as simple
as a crowbar or a well-tied knot;

open up the paddles, let it dam and pucker,
swell and with it, lift us like a bride, a kite,

a wanted answer, breath no longer held
or like a boat. We’re on our way

and rising. Water rushes in like fools;
these tonnages that slip across the cill,

all dirty-bottle green and gathering,
the torrent rushing to release itself, a giddy hurl

then slower, slow until it ends in glassy bulges,
hints of aftermath: a cool and thorough spending.

Wait, then, for the shudder in the gate,
the backward-drifting boat that tells you

there and here are level, an imbalance
righted. Ask of it – water, help me rise

and water says I will.