Flood

The rains fall forever
Or so it seems.
I should build an ark,
I thought,
Watching the melancholy
Drizzle against the glass.
That's what I would do
If I was Noah and God spoke to me.
But I am not
And He doesn't
So I sit and watch.
The tides rise.
The rivers overspill into homes
That belong to other people.
Faces on the news,
Holding a single prized possession ,
Rescued from the debris,
To take with them
Into a new day.
And I wonder.
What would I take with me
Should that new day come
And the rains stop
And the waters recede?
What will I carry
That I treasure
From the flood?


Copyright 2003 by Helen Eden.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry 360 with permission of the author.