Haiku Classic: Feb. 5, 2023 -- Dividing nature

flooded plain

fence tops show which water

belongs to whom

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George Swede (1940- ). From "The Heron's Nest," Volume VI, No. 11, Nassau, New York, 2004.

This poem is all the more poignant now that climate change has begun to make such flooding all the more common an occurrence. What use are the fields when they are all underwater and then who cares to whom they belong? Fences are just a construct we humans use to divide nature based on our concepts of ownership, while the waters, the air, the insects, birds and even the ground beneath go on in their existence, just as they always have.

Selected and commented on by Dhugal J. Lindsay

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Pique your poetic interest with more Haiku in English here.