Flooded Meadows

Half of this flat valley is still hay meadow, green and gold under a wide, rain-washed sky. The other half is water. Shallow and silver, it has crept over the grass in sheets, and old fence lines run straight down into it and vanish. Hay barns on stilts stand scattered across the meadows, built of weathered planks under steep roofs; the nearest sit on dry ground, the farther ones stand in the flood up to their beams. One haycock has gone under almost to its top, a small round island of darkening gold. Across the middle runs the dam line, a low ridge of woven sticks and packed mud glistening fresh after the night. Ditches cut straight across the fields have brimmed and stopped draining. Long iron hooks lean on one barn wall, their wooden handles worn pale and smooth. Far off, a boardwalk heads into the reeds. Since yesterday the water has risen again.