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Scotland Outdoors

What the Clyde said, after COP26

Scotland Outdoors

BBC

Nature, Society & Culture, Science

4.7709 Ratings

🗓️ 5 January 2022

⏱️ 31 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Mark explores the poem written by Kathleen Jamie in a journey along the Clyde in Glasgow

Transcript

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0:00.0

Did you know that you can listen to many of your favourite podcasts first on BBC Sounds?

0:06.6

Like Desert Island Discs, where you can hear castaways like Cher, Gareth Southgate and Nick Cave,

0:12.7

and enjoy longer versions of the music they've picked.

0:15.7

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0:18.7

Listen to your favourite podcasts first on BBC Sounds.

0:24.0

The Scotland Outdoors podcast from BBC Radio Scotland.

0:33.3

Hello and thank you very much for choosing this podcast.

0:36.1

I'm Mark Stephen.

0:41.7

In this edition, we begin with a poem about the River Clyde.

0:57.2

What the Clyde said after COP 26. I keep the heed. I'm cool. If asked, but you never ask, I'd answer in tongues hinting of linds, of leaving, nether, Kelvin, cart, but neutral, balancing both banks equally as I flow.

1:06.0

Do I judge? I mine the hammer swing, the welders flash, the heavy steel-built hulls I bore downstream from my city.

1:14.5

And maybe I was a bleather skite then, a wee bit full of myself, when we seemed a guy near unstoppable.

1:21.7

But how can I stomach any more of these storm rains?

1:25.4

How can I slip quietly away to meet my lover, the wide-armed

1:29.4

ocean, knowing I'm a poison chalice she must drain, drinking everything you chuck away?

1:37.3

So these days I'm a listener, aye, think of me as a long, level, liquid ear gliding slowly by.

1:45.6

I heard the world's words, the pleas of peoples born where my ships once sailed.

1:51.3

I heard the beautiful promises.

1:54.6

And sure, I'm a river, but I can take a side.

1:58.8

From this day I'd rather keep afloat like wee folded paper boots,

2:03.8

the hopes of the young folk chanting at my bank,

2:07.4

fear in their spring bright eyes.

...

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