The birds in the garden don’t come anymore,

Since the water rose up in July,

The badgers and squirrels and rabbits are gone,

And there’s little land left, which is dry,

The house that we’ve lived in for twenty three years,

Is now two thirds under the water,

And it’s the first time we wished that we lived somewhere else,

Since the glorious day that we bought her.

Home for us now is a barn, miles away,

With the rest of our neighbours and friends,

All of us cursing our luck and our loss,

And wondering if we’ll ever go home again.

My wife is in tears for most of the time,

And my own tears won’t take much fo fall.

Due to the work that we’ve recently done,

Redecorating the hall,

I can’t help but think of the garden and yard,

So beautifully kept and arranged,

And the money it cost for landscaping last year,

I guess all of that’s now down the drain.

Along with the collection of poems and verse,

And the occasional attempt at a song,

That I’ve hoarded like gold since ten years of age.

All of that stuff’s also gone.

All our belongings, downstairs, I suspect,

Will be ruined by water and silt,

But I suppose we are fortunate, considering all,

That no-one round here has been killed.

You hear on the news about earthquakes and floods,

But don’t think that it’ll happen you you,

And it doesn’t occur to you, if it did,

Exactly how much you would lose.

And it never has flooded round these parts before,

So I suppose we should blame global warming

We got a deluge of rain in forty eight hours,

That hit our neighbourhood without warning.

The sandbags they gave us were useless at best,

And the pumps that we bought little better,

It seemed the more water we pumped out into the street,

The ground floor of our house just got wetter.

Of course we were determined, like everyone else,

To fight it the best that we could,

But with furniture floating all over the house,

We soon realised, it’s no good.

We were fighting a battle against nature itself,

And soon learnt there was no way to win,

When for safety we found ourselves up on the roof,

And my wife still unable to swim.

So when the dingy came for us we climbed in and left,

Just grateful to get out alive.

We’ve lost everything, but are still grateful to God,

That everybody we know has survived.

By S.E.Ralph

1-10-2021