The foot and mouth crisis 2001

A clue: “Memitim” 2 down, 5 across, DEATH...
Another farmer holds his “breath”
His crossword puzzle now solved,
As he sits by the open fire resolved.

Firebrats shimmer like melting
Sparks through grates, between falling,
Slivering, among, the black slates.
Like silver ashen; phosphates!

Covering that hearths entirety,
They too show there’s no need for “piety”
As the future ghosts of the living; burn.
His world is an up-turned urn.

Listing he hears the cries of the last dying ewe.
Whilst angels of death beyond; “view”
Descend across each patchwork acre…
He himself too! screams at his maker.

Prier on prier, prayer on prayer!
Foot and mouth each neighboring “acre”
Burned black in the gasoline air…
Each man alone dies by his plowshare.

As more firebrats, recurred…
Another flock: another herd
Burned; like unguided lost souls
Stacked kindling in piled coals.

......................
The outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the United Kingdom in the spring and summer of 2001 caused a crisis in British agriculture and tourism. This epizootic saw 2,000 cases of the disease in farms in most of the British countryside. Over 10 million sheep and cattle were killed [1] in an eventually successful attempt to halt the disease. Cumbria was the worst affected area of the country, with 843 cases. With the intention of controlling the spread of the disease, public rights of way across land were closed by order. This damaged the popularity of the Lake District as a tourist destination. By the time the disease was halted by October 2001, the crisis was estimated to have cost the United Kingdom £8bn ($16bn), and had dominated much of the 2001 UK media coverage prior to September 11th.