There are many tides, my nana tells me, one lazy summer morning in our makeshift classroom.

Her cane, swatting out at the chalkboard she's propped against the wall,

swatting out at M's head when he seems to be drifting off to sleep.

Innumerable tides, she says, and we've only just begun counting them.

Tides that offer and tides that seize.

And if you're going to live upon the river, if you're going to understand its currents and live off its

kindness and survive its temper, you need to learn to recognise each of them.

The harvest tide, which comes as a welcome site, a healthy onrush of clear water and fresh shoals,

fish leaping from the shallows and exultation.

The corpse tide, which returns our drowned dead to us, their bellies swollen with life and swarming offerings. The wither tide,

which cannot be summoned through any mark we know of, which rises up like a storm to swallow the

land.

These are the silt verses,

and these are its disciples in order of their arrival.

Mave de Bruhn,

B. Nair, Lucille Valentine.

Written by John Ware

and produced by Munah Hussein.

Audio production by Sammy Holden.

Alone again in the dark, in the dust.

Babel said, Babble said, you must get their attention if you want to be heard.

You must make them listen, but nobody comes. Nobody comes not anymore. It's just me and Babel

...