During the floods
We imagined higher ground
How it wassailed us with promised grandeur
The way wandering philosophers proffer
Stark and mountainous vagaries
That none can ever reach
Except Tensing and Hillary
And the small fawn sparrow
They startled on the crest
When the waters failed to recede
We thought of broader bridges
Crossing vast, immodest swathes
To new and celebratory shores
Isolated but still standing
A wary freeway pass
Animals stymied in their crossing
Despite the crocodile trawl
Of ripples veering from unknown objects
The rent teeth gnawing
An opaque surface
Muck and slick and indolent
As if this ark were of a sudden
A peaceable place
Like in the idylls of latter day saints
Lambs and lions in repose
Trees garlanded with garbage wreaths
All those broken toys
Subarus, consoles, drowned kites fluttering
Fish in sublimation
Half caught in the turbulence of unexpected freedom
Dead blank star smashed screens
Mired in neon vacancies and silt
Offered up to the entrails of monsters
From which they were once made
Red as dawn’s blear warning
In hope
Of water’s gone
Transparent as the newly swollen day
