The Willow That Will Not Weep

Grey green water fills the ditch at the foot of the garden to its brim. The great drains are tediously full to the tops of their banks. The Ouse overflows onto the road and now the groundwater seeps up out of the fen like a woken beast spilling into the world. It will not take much, now, to turn the fen into a grey lake.

The mighty Willow that we call the Admiral which stands guard at the foot of the fen is waiting to drink that rising earth-blood. The wind has battered it for weeks, constant gusts of thirty mile an hour winds, hour after hour, day after day. Not killer punches, but a relentless stream of body-blows that just will not stop. Its bark shows its flesh. Its thin stems beat in constant insensate whirls. Like a boxer beaten so sensless he no longer knows how to fall, the Admiral stands and glowers at this relentless winter and will not be beaten. Come the spring, it will turn gold and drink the Earth dry of the flood.