The Flood Poem by David Lewis Paget

They said that the ocean was rising
It would soon overwhelm the land,
While I lived down on the valley floor
Below the sea and the sand,
The only thing that had kept us dry
Was a narrow band of ground,
Between a couple of mountainsides
In a long protective mound.

There were others lived in the valley
It was like an ancient clan,
That had hung on tight to its own birthright
Since before the world began,
While the fathers ruled for the daughters
That they may not look aside,
They could only marry within the clan
If they'd call themselves a bride.

But I was a rank outsider,
I could look, but couldn't touch,
I tortured myself with Geraldine
Who flaunted herself so much.
Her skin was the texture of silk and cream
And her voice the trill of the thrush,
She'd bare her breasts till she knew I'd seen
Then laugh when she made me blush.

But Geraldine had a father, Roy,
Who was rough, and high in the clan,
He'd single me out and say, ‘You boy,
Your eyes are straying again!
You'd better not look at Geraldine
She's not intended for you,
I'll marry her to a real man
That's what she'd want me to do.'

He'd threaten to beat me with the staff
That kept Geraldine in line,
I thought, she'd never be marked like that
If ever the girl was mine,
But fate lay just round the corner then
With storm clouds tumbling through,
And gale winds whipping the breakers up
In a high tide whirl of a stew.

The mound was breached in the early morn
And carried away like a dam,
Suddenly water was everywhere
I reached for my boots, and ran,
The whole of the ocean seemed to flow
Right down to the valley floor,
With most of the cottages swept away
The clan, it seemed, was no more.

I heard her crying out in the flood
Reached out as she floated by,
And Geraldine had clung onto me,
Her father would drown, and die.
We fought our way to the higher ground
And we saw our homes subside,
Buried forever beneath the flood
But I made the girl my bride.

14 September 2016