Acts of Nature - Dec 3 2021

 

Acts of Nature

Dec 3 2021

In the flooded valley, anxiously mooing cows

crowd a raised patch

of dry stony land,

stranded

by rising water.

Big animals, they're packed haunch to haunch,

jostling roughly

pawing the ground.

Dead chickens float by

pigs' carcasses.

Substantial barns

have floated off their foundations.

High water

that has drowned entire herds,

toppled dykes

washed-out major roads.

The farmers themselves have fled,

taking only their dogs

and essential papers.

I watch this on the news.

Acts of nature

climate change

a missing God;

if not absent, then at least indifferent.

Or so they say.

And in the aftermath

fingers pointed;

preparation lacking

warnings ignored.

I had my own flood years ago.

I recall wading through waist-high run-off

that could have swept me away,

the wet muddy mess it left

well up the basement wall.

Wiser and chastened, I soon moved away

and now occupy the high ground,

in relative safety

gazing gratefully out at the rain

as it turns to cold wet snow.

That is, if anything is safe.

If safety

is even worth trying for

let alone possible.

Like them, I thought that civilization

would somehow protect me.

That we have mastered nature.

That we no longer live

in Biblical times.

And anyway

wasn't Noah's flood

mostly allegorical?

The farmers will return

eventually.

Repair, rebuild

try to forget.

Because if nothing else

we are dogged survivors,

enduring, overcoming

forging ahead.

The perennial battle

between indomitable nature

and stubborn man.

Some who pray.

Some who swear.

And some who shake a fist

ranting at fate.

While others are broken by it;

swept away

like what they lost,

the good soil

and toppled barns

and dead or dying cattle.

To somewhere downstream,

where bloated bodies will be washing up

then hauled off to be burned.