Three Poems

November Floods

From where I stood at the rim of the canal
The extent of the flooding was difficult to take in
Until I had worked out exactly what was what -
Where the ground was low there was five feet of water
And the oval fence around the reedbeds
Looked like a massive net pegged out by floats.
It rained all yesterday, and again this morning,
After weeks with a downpour nearly every day,
So I might have expected the Flash to be waterlogged -
But now it looked as though a dam had burst
And turbid water, surging like a tide,
Had clean submerged the footpath and the heath.
The stock ponds, prone to flood at the best of times,
Were joined to a system of lakes in a vast plain
Which stretched as far as the line of oaks,
...