Earth at Work

Against a dawn sky coloured with fading highlighter, bare winter branches remind me of the Nile and, tangentially, of  Churn and the Chelt, Slad, Severn and Wye, Avon and Thames, with its source not far from here;  further afield, the Great Ouse,  Graham Swift’s  fictional Leem,  the Yare, the Blythe and the Alde; and then on, on, on to the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo, the Orange and Vaal, Gamtoos and Gouritz, Kowie, Kromme and Kei, Mtamvuna and Umzimkulu, Hluhuwe and Mfolozi, Tugela and uMngeni and their tributaries, Msunduzi, Bushmans, Lions, Karkloof and Mooi.