Recession...

The river floods have receded
leaving the salt-sour smell of silt
hanging in the air.
Coating everything oil slick-smooth.
Tall grasses beaten down,
into lumpy straw-mattresses,
littered with the chequered, snake-like roots of water-lily.

Flotsam and jetsam -
plastic bottles, garden fences, trees
and everywhere giant hay-bales,
cut too late to be harvested
before the flood arrived.
Now strewn into ditches and river,
the black plastic skin unpeeling,
revealing an interior of rotting grass.
Man-made detritus
that will persist for far too long.

But amongst the wreckage,
there are signs of spring.
New green shoots emerging from the mire,
a trio of territorial song thrushes
each fluting triplet heralding the changing season.
And the primeval scream of a pair of herons
engaged in pre-nuptial display
rends the darkening sky.