Sunday 10 March 2013

Die Back by Gram Davies

Over ale, he tells me, 
Ash burns wet. Downpour. 
Trains in disarray, villages 
silenced. The English seem 
forever unprepared. To reach 
a bus stop needed waders. 

A website showed you 
how to spot the rot: patches 
in bark like porter soaking
shirtsleeves; twigs’
black fingernails bared
above canopies. 

We fought flash floods
on roads which closed like zips 
behind us, to this inn fire 
under these ceiling beams. 
Some things appear changeless;
we have no tales of tomorrow.

But in lanes, overhung by ashes’
banana-bunch branches...
a creeping flame. Another ale –
he tells me there were fewer
floods, back in his day.


Gram Davies, England

1 comment:

MsJinnifer said...

Beautiful poem Gram and so evocative of the Levels