Save the rain!

Cherry

By Rhiannonw

Fri, 02 May 2025
  • 86 reads
4 comments
 

A valley drowned – no sound
of play or plough.
A village grave – to save
the river rain.
Dammed growing lake to slake
the thirst afar.
A city drinks, its sinks
and showers fill.

Today, a peaceful scene –
not what had been,
but wildlife haven,
place of recuperation
from city bustle.

[IP: about a place that no longer exists.] This poem is not about a particular place. The photo is of Clywedog dam, and I don't think a village was lost in the forming of that reservoir.

Certificate U
Poem
Miscellaneous
Inspiration Point (work that responds to our weekly writing cue)

Comments

Submitted by Schubert on

This reminds me of Ladybower reservoir which swallowed several communities as it was built. The old Derwent village church spire used to stick up out of the water during droughts and looked really weird.

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

Thank you. I was reading of that when I wrote it. And saw the photograph! I knew little about the English reservoirs' history.

I was a teenager when there was the anger in Wales about drowning the village for the Tryweryn reservoir. I think probably it was the way it was handled and considered and pushed through that was partly responsible, though whether there could have been discussion and agreement I don't know. Often it is only a few farms and isolated houses that were drowned probably. The reservoirs are beautiul places now. Rhiannon

 

Submitted by D G Moody on

I too recall Ladybower; we visited there on a school trip when we still lived in the UK. And a good poem Rhiannon, the cost of our 'thirst' for more and more water - much of which is wasted.

Dougie Moody

Submitted by Rhiannonw on

Thanks. Yes, we can be wasteful. Sometimes the compulsory purchase of land has been done rather insensitively I think in the past, but these reservoirs are also quite beautiful places now. Rhiannon