Opening poem of 'Rib Cities' by the Swedish poet Eva Ström

The floods

The floods have not reached us

not wiped out the roadway, not overflowed the fields

The squalls have not reached us

not torn up trees by the roots, not

blocked the roads, tossed the train from the rails

Three thousand railway workers have not cleared

one thousand one hundred trees. No stable roof has blown off

near Petersborough, no aircraft was forced

to make a second landing attempt with terrified

passengers. No Sharon Black, 40, was still shaking

when saying the words: I honestly thought

I was going to die. The entire reality

from Aberdeen to Dover, from Dublin

to the English Channel was enacted in the

virtual emptiness that unexplored is called your brain

And you shut your eyes and said: Where you are is not death

where death is you are not. But the water continued to rise

and the two schoolboys at Robertsbridge, East Sussex

continued their arduous path through the expanses of water

leading their bikes through the vast defoliation

since the river had once more burst the embankments

and inundated the land one could not see

until Stan Lewis stepped out onto the staircase of his shop in Bewdley

to feed seven swans floating on a mirror of calm.