nor would it have been all or
of a sudden
but sinking
soft sea rise, hardly
perceptible, till Celsius painted
a white line on a rock, as a memory
which did not metamorphosise to myth
inundations were many, intrusions
amongst others
and those with higher land
and lesser kinship might be unconcerned
or sometimes rather pleased
when low fields drowned
not a few were lost with them, forgotten...
as with the rejects of Augustus Smith...
history being said by the fortunate people...
and as salt accumulated in flooding fields,
they were abandoned to weather's triage,
good only for passers by and stories,
name calling to call back abandoned space,
with lame fruit the children scrumped between work,
or to graze cattle in destitution
though, still, their boundaries brought harsh dispute
and drunken argument and boast. No one,
perhaps, understood the relentless peril;
while none of them measured their land, except
across, never up and down in abstract,
until one day the sea arrived and stayed
longer than usual
mild years it kept back
beyond the beaches and the tumbled cliffs,
raiding others less worthy, somewhere else,
not the people
but in this bad year
the several holes it probed through island skin
were too big and many to be repaired
you don't just move a whole apple orchard
such things could be survived
it's said a horse
was eaten
and the dogs tended to bite
much worse, the foreign income came no more
after the surveyors and senior priests,
apart from two boatfuls of those who like
to see the disasters of other humans,
there was no business
there was no cash flow
as with a dry well or an aging tree
that generation died
its children died
things changed without improvement
ponds grew foul
grew bigger
much low land was wet all year
a raised beach or planation surface
would cross the tidemark in one person's life
things changed immensely
strangers grabbed unguarded
land and built and preached there
making change
and, then, some parts of the
island were, by
the tide, separating islands, the wash
deepening imperceptibly
what is now is as it has never been
five inhabited points in seven way turmoil
shuddering fluttering points
windblown puddles
turned out inside from their temporary space
and certain to be erased soon
in histories an ocean wreaks
rocking stones upon tremendous ocean
-----
UNFRAMED GRAPHICS by Lawrence Upton
42 pages; A5 paperback; colour cover
Writers Forum 978 1 84254 277 4
wfuk.org.uk/blog
----
Lawrence Upton
Dept of Music
Goldsmiths, University of London
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