Jane Routh
Magma Showcase: Jane Routh
In Praise of Land Drains
On a fine day after rain, the wind dropped, listen
anywhere moles have burrowed echo chambers
and you’ll hear splashing underground.
It’s days like today, driven rain
straight off the Irish Sea and coat seams letting water,
you look for the spurting geysers of a blockage
and dig on the down side. Keep digging,
three foot, maybe four, and cut a step.
Watch your wellies. Get in the hole
with that fast and muddy water
and channel it downhill. Pass the crow bar.
Hear it ring on stone. Now we’re getting there.
Someone – Robin, say, for whom it’s named –
dragged this meadow out of moorland.
Hacked down gorse, scythed rushes, turned it
with a hand-held plough. Picked stones and piled them.
Dug deep: under sod, under subsoil,
down into the solid clay. And drained it.
Tunnels of boulders, roofed over with slabs,
overturned turfs and backfill. Built to last
a lifetime and every lifetime evermore.
He couldn’t have imagined the weight
of machines, end-of-season contractors
driving over land too wet for hay.
As good as moats and castles on a beach.
This time there’s a fine spraying fountain
when we hit the spot. Shift that slab!
and the whole seething, swirling mass
gurgles off down Robin’s drain, still sucking
the land back into shape just as he knew it would.
Page(s) 38
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