The river is everywhere it is in places it has never been
it is rolling down the street like a waterfall roaring
it is filling gardens and back yards it is seeping under doors
pouring through letterboxes in at windows
filling up shop windows like fish tanks
its force is demolishing walls, cracking roads
sweeping cars away and we see suddenly that it could kill us,
this daily companion that flows through our town
sometimes gentle and sparkly sometimes brown and choppy,
but never before this river giant this watery monster
this cascade, this unstoppable force, this necessity
to go somewhere since its banks cannot contain it
since the rains have swelled and swelled it,
the moors a saturated sponge, the paths and lanes
down from the tops fast-flowing streams.
it is rolling down the street like a waterfall roaring
it is filling gardens and back yards it is seeping under doors
pouring through letterboxes in at windows
filling up shop windows like fish tanks
its force is demolishing walls, cracking roads
sweeping cars away and we see suddenly that it could kill us,
this daily companion that flows through our town
sometimes gentle and sparkly sometimes brown and choppy,
but never before this river giant this watery monster
this cascade, this unstoppable force, this necessity
to go somewhere since its banks cannot contain it
since the rains have swelled and swelled it,
the moors a saturated sponge, the paths and lanes
down from the tops fast-flowing streams.
2 comments:
Wonderful and terrifying.
I was a child at Lynmouth when the floods came, and I have never forgotten the strength and raw power of water.
What a pleasure to read a poem here again! One always wishes that traumatic events were not the trigger, but poetry does feel like a precious and fitting response to the fearful drama of floods.
Since I last read your fine poetry I've started to dabble myself (very surprised!), and have been posting poems on Dave's generously and inspiringly shared Via Negativa blog. Wrote one inspired by the floods in Yorkshire: http://www.vianegativa.us/2015/12/flooded/ and was very chuffed that an online friend in Chennai then contributed some of her work in response to the floods there:http://www.vianegativa.us/author/uma-gowrishankar/
My heart aches in particular for your lovely town.
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