A song of swamps

Be well assured that on our side
The abiding swamps do fight,
Though subsidence and long-term drought
Make a sport of their plight.

By force of greed, not of need,
In jeopardy us human’s steer.
Then must accept natures discourtesy
Whereby it shall appear.

Out of the mist, from deep in the murk
The frogs and dragonflies play a role.
And almost these mindless wetlands work
As though they had a soul.

Almost as though they welcomed the impact
the dry brown and white from green:
They almost welcome their own self destruction
Whereby it shall be seen.

Be well assured, though politics and mines
Have mightier blows in store,
That we who keep the watch assigned
Must stand to it the more;
And as our scientific minds rebuke
Each unsupported assumption,

We shrewdly act on the swamp’s behalf
with accuracy and gumption.

No matter how their secrets are kept,
they can’t hide the streambed cracks.
We can learn from all loss except
The loss of turning our backs.

 

11.07.2022 after Rudyard Kipling ‘A song in storm’