January Flood

Due to heavy rainfall the Ouse and other Yorkshire rivers are now heavilyflooding and for the past four days the water levels have risen significantly, causing a lot of chaos in York and elsewhere. It is not unusual for the Ouse to overstep its banks - quite the contrary - but the masses of water currently sweeping through the city are extraordinary. I have myself seen the Ouse flood - and I have found some primal excitement beholding the spectacle - but from photographs put up by friends in York, I understand that this flooding exceeds everything I've experienced myself.

The principal concern in such matters is of course the individuals affected by the Yorkshire deluge and I wish them all the very best. Yet at the same time I can't help feeling a bit sad for not being there to see this for myself. To me there is something deeply fascinating about water - probably owing to my Western Norwegian upbringing - and I find few things as spellbinding as river scorning its boundaries.

When I studied in York last year I witnessed two floods myself, but - as stated - none of them so great as what is happening now. The January flood, for instance, was less of a violent affair, almost casual, but of course serious in its own sedate way. In this blogpost I'm presenting yet another poem, chiefly because I do not possess any original material on the current event, and partly because I have too little time for long, researched blogposts.

January Flood

The Ouse, January 2011

As if to take revenge the river came -
So full with earth it could not keep it in -

To repossess what man long since had claimed

With steel and stones in monetary whims.

As if to take revenge, as if to scorn

What man took pains to raise from grass and clay

The river spews out what the rain had torn

From out the fields and folds and washed away.

The river came, drunk, dull in a sluggish speed;
Like some old force grown fat from wasted years

It came, pathetic, pleased with prospective fears;
It passed and left its vestiges of greed.

- November 17-20 2011