The Polders

Dead flat to the horizon, the fields sit lower than the river that runs behind the dyke. Straight ditches divide them into long green strips, each ditch a ribbon of silver holding the sky. A raised dyke road runs along the river side. Along the main drain stands a row of timber windpumps, smock mills tarred black with white canvas sails, all turning in the same wind. The sails creak. One brick pumping station breaks the line. Its new chimney is taller than anything for miles, and a steam pump lies half installed beside it under tarpaulin. Farm hamlets sit on low mounds, older than the ditches, their roofs thatched and their walls whitewashed. Big clouds pass in a windy morning. Shadows run over the fields and on. Past the last reed ditch, a dark band at the polder's far edge, the marsh begins.