Glorious mud
A simple recipe of water, silt, soil and clay
Nature's potion; so powerful, so useful, so dangerous
Uncontrollable and untethered is this egalitarian mixture
Loved and loathed by human and animal
Low tide, the muddy shores of the Victorian Thames beckoned
The ragged-clothed mudlark scavenged for anything he could sell
Scrap iron, animal fat, coal, pieces of rope and canvas - the daily fayre
Few pennies for bread and beer, so cruel for the young, orphaned, homeless child
They came to Woodstock and Glastonbury with a light heart
Tens of thousands flocked to share music and the experience
Rain-turned fields of mud bound them together
They freely left muddied, smiling and uplifted
Yet, in another time the mudscape of the battlefield was the real enemy
The toxic mix of natural mud contaminated with human bi-products
Was the welcome each new trench soldier received
It oozed into the very soul of every pawn on both sides
In another place, Musgum people are at one with the earth
The simple beauty of their mud huts lingers on
Tall conical form cools the summer heat
Outside, geometrical patterns channel the monsoon rains
Elsewhere, acrid black smoke hangs over the valley like a spectre
Families live and work in squalor, slaves in all but name
A child finishes a mud brick her father moulded and her mother will bake
India’s economic miracle built in the mud hell of the poor
Strong, viscous, colourfully rich
Powerful images of mud stencils of the street
Dramatic forms of the land artist’s river mud
Subtle negative spaces in mud cloth designs
Yet in one moment, nature's art supersedes
The deadly ride of everything in the mudflow’s path
The open wound of a hillside landslide
The jigsaw pattern in sun-baked mud of a riverbed
The figurative use of mud exudes negative undertones
Worthless and polluting, it described sixteenth century people and things
Mixed with a sense of extreme, an insult it soon became
Dragged through the mud by mudslinging of others, your name becomes mud
Mud, O glorious mud
You take no sides, you give no quarter
Fluid in your journey, solid in your destiny
Eternal existence assured
Copyright © Simon Rogerson | Year Posted 2025
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