When banks of cloud roll and cover too dry ground then farmers hearts are cheered.
But farmers rarely get to be happy for long.
Down comes the rain again, and again.
Day following grey day.
Soil turns to mud; streams become rivers; pools grow to lakes and beyond. And now drains are choked with debris and overflow so that waters runs above instead of below.
In farms cheer turns readily to despair as fields and orchards are drowned, some livestock too though most are saved.
And still rain falls and all is level for the water has risen and risen leaving small islands of land and tree tops to break the view.
And farmers, most livestock secured on higher ground, glumly watch the news and hears,
‘So, to recap, further rain across the country. Good for the reservoirs, not so great for the flooded levels, or the weekend barbecue.’
Poem by stuartcturnbull, picture from bohemianbikini on Pixabay
This poem is one written over the summer of 2022. It is part of a suite of poems that considers UK history and life from roughly the end of the Second World War through to an unknown future.
The suite's title is from the opening line of the fourth stanza in William Blake's 1808 poem Jerusalem