As I sit and type, the rain is hammering down on the roof and scouring a day's cow treadings and worse from the lane outside our gate. Our goldfish were thinking of exploring the garden yesterday - they become ever closer to that experience this evening!
On our way back from picking D up from Ammanford yesterday, we drove along a Towy Valley whipped by the tail of the gale. Already water meadows were living up to their name, cattle and sheep had moved to higher ground in their fields and part of the A40 was under a foot of water where a stream had burst its banks. A gaggle of excited children were stood just out of reach of any spray from passing cars, though it was a near miss when we ploughed through, concerned we got no water up the exhaust especially as this was THE only route back, our bottom lanes being under water.
There was a break in the rain, and as I was a passenger for a change, I scribbled down a few words of description. For once, I have followed that up with a rough copy for a poem (thanks to the Weaver of Grass for getting me writing again too!)
LIME GREEN
The trees on the hillfort lean away from the gale
Like greyhounds loosed from the leash,
Their leaves combed from the whipping branches
By a callous hand. Strewn in tousled heaps,
They fetch up against the hedge-roots,
Jittering like nervous lovers, then forcing themselves
Through bare branches like water through a colander.
Gleaming puddles lie on the sullen ploughed fields,
Their surface ruffled by the wind into irritated shivers,
Reflecting the lemon lollipops of the last hazel leaves
Which prance in the stripped hedgerows.
A gleam of lime green on Merlin's Hill
Is wiped out by a fist of clouds, which
Scud along the valley and as I look behind me,
Drag their lilac petticoats across Black Mountain and beyond.
With many thanks to tl for the notion of clouds dragging their petticoats and wishing I had her originality with beautiful words . . .
Wow, wish you could send some our way, we never have enough! Impressive pics though, hope you don't flood.
ReplyDeleteOh this is too awful, the flooding.
ReplyDeleteYour little river changes character so completely when it gets in a temper! It must be quite intimidating when it rushes past so ruthlessly.
ReplyDeleteThere is more rain on its way so I hope that your goldfish are still at home tomorrow.......
Some lovely imagery in "Lime Green".
The flooding is alarming, but your words describing the storm effects are lovely and paint an interesting picture. I especially like "the lemon lollipops of the last hazel leaves."
ReplyDeleteI am always a bit in awe of poetry--it hones thoughts and mind-pictures with such an economy of words. [Probably why I don't write poetry--I'm a spendthrift with words!]
Had to view this again--is that your own house surrounded with that advancing tide of slurry? It looks like your color of paint.
ReplyDeleteMM - Nah - it's one of the pubs down in the village I'm glad to say! We're half way up a very steep hill which levels out where our house is and then climbs very steeply again. Those old chaps knew where to site a house. I think I have read enough Edward Thomas prose to now realize that sometimes descriptions make better poetry . . .
ReplyDeleteDW - it can become a killer, that river. At the mill, they had the water within an inch of their 2nd floor door, the year before we arrived . . .
ER & Ann S - it's not something we experienced - in such quantities - when we lived in Dorset. We have more extremes of weather here. The main drawback is heavy rain causes our water supply (a spring) to discolour and we have to bring drinking water in then.
.... and I thought we'd had a lot of rain!
ReplyDeleteThanks for a great and fascinating blog, I've really enjoyed reading it :)