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“Willow, branches hanging and billowing sorrowfully, always by water, be it pit, lake or river; wherever it can dip its roots. Its thirst has no end, a hundred gallons a day, so they say. They lined the margins of the pits of my childhood, created by jettisoned bombs from air raids during the war.
"Bottomless", they'd tell us, "So don't fall in!"
Home of the monster eels and pike where carp would swirl lazily, taunting us boys with our fishing rods and jam butties. Alleged final resting place for sacks of kittens, with bricks for ballast, thrown in with neither ceremony nor pity when the farm's population of feral felines got too much.
In the submerged roots there's was a veritable witches spell of British wildlife, toads, newts, frogs and the childhood nemesis of children in this little pocket of West Lancashire, Jenny (or Jinny- depending on the adult you spoke with) Greenteeth.
Said to be lurking just below the surface, ready to drag unsuspecting and adventurous youngsters to an untimely and watery grave.
Far from deterring us, we'd hunt her down the ditches, our wellies often breached by the waters depth, following the tell-tale trails of duckweed and algae. She was as real as ourselves in those days but we didn't care and I learned the hard way, at a very early age, that you can't surf on still water.
I survived but know of one who didn't and was found face down under a swing bridge at ten years old...
All under the watchful, indifferent gaze of the willow, who knows what secrets they keep?”

lyrics

Their heads hang in sorrow, crying and a-weeping
Their feet are dipped into the waters dark
The willow guards the secrets whispered by the wind
That roll across the landscape near and far

They play host to a witches spell of fauna
Above the bat, below the toad and newt
The mirror carp flips lazily, grateful for the shade
There's home for all amongst the tangled roots

And they know but they're not telling
Of the child amongst the rushes
Who vanished from his garden one fair day
They know but they're not telling
Of the child amongst the rushes
In silent resolution they will stay

Nearby a farmer works, lovers come a courting
A pair of souls melting into one
The duckweed undulates with a ripple in the water
The willow holds its breath until they're gone

It's bottomless they say, where Jennie lays a-waiting
Sharp in tooth and nail in waters black
Who knows what else there is discarded in the margins
You can ask the trees but they won't answer back.

credits

from Northwestern Soul (EP), released December 1, 2020

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Will Riding Chester

A Lancashire born, Chester based singer-songwriter with a deft and playful turn of phrase and acoustic - folk sensibilities inspired by, amongst other things, 70’s Children’s TV.

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