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Ach, May
You’ve been too dark and cold.
Last Friday the Schauinsland and Feldberg
Were clad in a mantle of snow.
Now and then the sun
Broke through the clouds.
‘It was the coldest Spring
In forty years,’ said Frau Fruttiger.
Freiburg and Kappel were veiled
In a misty shroud.
It rained incessantly,
Causing the Schwarzwald streams
To roar and gush to the rivers.
The Brugga, Dreisam, Rhein,
Moldau and Danube
Left their beds
And caused havoc.
The earth became soaked,
The farmers lamented:
‘The harvest has been ruined,
The acres have turned
To paddy fields.’
The Polish workers groan
As they harvest the asparagus,
And poor potatoes.
The students walk warily
On the banks of the muddy, brown Dreisam.
It’s much too cold and wet
For the hatched young storks.
The toll is big
For birds in the trees.
The food has been hidden
By the sheets of snow.
Humans can only sadly watch
The birds die silently.
Even when it’s painful
Nature has to be left alone,
To maintain the balance,
Through selection,
For only the fittest survive.
On the north side of the Alps
The heavy rain and melted snow
Endanger Nature and humans alike.
The dripping earth is saturated,
And what follows
Are earthquakes and landslides.
People in Saxony, Thüringen and Passau
Bid farewell to their homes,
Swimming away before their very eyes,
Drowning in menacing, swollen rivers.
In Verbier, Wallis it’s different.
If you can’t do anything
When there’s bad weather,
Why, you go skiing,
For that’s the thing to do.
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