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
Beautiful poem Gram and so evocative of the Levels
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