Today the prompt is to write a haibun.
Redundant reservoir.
Many years ago I visited this valley with my grandfather, and it was a sea of construction,
fascinating to childish eyes, and the top of the valley was flooded already. There was a small
dam to hold back the early water from the moorland river, and the main valley was flattened
by bulldozers and diggers, farmhouses and cottages, barns and byres all demolished and left
as piles of debris and stone.
When I visited this valley with my grandfather there were some trees, they were young and
marched along the hillside in ranks, pine-treed soldiers fighting an imaginary war with the
native heather and bracken. Over time the trees grew and many have now been harvested,
not by men with horses as years ago, but by forwarders and chainsaws and heavy plant
running on petrol and diesel.
When I visit this valley now it is without my grandfather. When I visited with him he could
not have known that one day I would live just across the hill form this valley, and that I would
drive here several times a week and walk along the tracks and beside the lake. I have seen old trees
taken and sold, and new ones planted to take their place. I have seen new paths laid to replace
the old ones that meandered by the lake.
Today, when summer
Is hidden from view by pillow-soft
Clouds, I recall.
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