Not Even the Flood

After Tim Moder’s “Landscape with Fall of Civilization: Imaginings After Touring Chaco Canyon and Canyon de Chelly”

Not even the flood will drown our sorrow,

but it might bring some change through the pipes.

The pipes can bring us chocolate coins, fresh playing cards,

and all the other goods that got us through summer nights.

Our summer nights used to be full of cicada orchestras and

chalk drawings on the driveway, of bumped elbows and pleasant exchanges.

These pleasant exchanges evaporated to return in the next

round of the storm, with enough force to knock over the picnic table.

The picnic table might come through the bay window this time,

to remind us of when the five of us used to sit together on its form.

Its form has changed to us huddled close together in the attic, hoping that

those lost children will be carried through this time with the water.

The water can renew us, but we’ve seen enough storms to know

that not even the flood will drown our sorrow.