Saturday, May 20, 2023

16,308. WHEN WE CAME DOWN FROM THE MOUNTAIN

WHEN WE CAME DOWN 
FROM THE MOUNTAIN 
When we came down from the mountain, the
little village at the bottom was already gone.
The raging water had mostly washed it away.
Incongruously, someone's housephone was
somehow ringing  -  in a way I hadn't heard
in ten years. Noe one usually keeps a house
phone any more.
-
Raging waters don't take too long to do their
damage  -  the swirl and twirl and swipe all
things in their way. Cars get rotated and
chimneys fail. Around here, stuff ends
up on porches. Cats find their perches
high up on a beam.
-
I didn't see any people, so I wasn't sure
what had occurred, or if they'd all gone
away somewhere. Animals, the same.
No braying cattle, no lines of goat and
sheep. The Methodist Church by the
side-lawn was soaked, and the open front
doors look more like trouble than grace.
-
Roman's Farm, the sign said, looked now
like a lake more than anything else. The
houses, with their blue cars and red tractors,
look troubled and stricken with grief.
Nonetheless, I wouldn't want to live
anywhere else. To. Say. The. Least.

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