Fire and Flood

There is a warm, wise wall

Rising above the flood plain.

Levee-like, but not so desolate,

It inches up from the pregnant ground.

Its wisdom is intuited earth and air,

Meeting to hold water and fire apart.

In spring, the floods would flatten all,

In fall, the fire would paint the trees red.

The wall is imperceptible, iridescent even.

It has features, steps and stairs and grass grown

High up its sides, trees surmount the summit.

It seems a natural thing almost, so laid into

The surrounding earth that primal forces

Must have made its ramparts begin to rise.

So it seems, and yet... The wall speaks as well,

To either side and both at once, calming those

Springtime tides and autumn flames. So calm.

Naturalness grows from its foundations, and so

What appears newly formed is older still,

Deep roots into the riverbed, or tree shade

Reaching overhead into an easy breeze.

Speaking into these roots and wind, the wall

Is measured grace, one syllable at each slow time.

Rumors of earthquakes, that ran the waters backward

To their source, these caution the wall's speech.

Slowly, slowly, one slow word at a time,

Easing each piece of warm dirt into place,

Raising the levee past perception into cloudy skies.

Rivers and fires are sustaining and destroying.

Nature engenders them both with power,

Nurture forces that power into channels

That do not always fit a mold. Better held back,

Even held closely, breathing into the night,

Than loosed without bound upon a hapless world.

The world would absorb it in time, worlds do.

But charred and drowning, the townsfolk find

Such devastation hard to absorb. They welcome

The wall, perhaps prayed for it, comforted by its coming.

Tomorrow, the wall will be a wee bit more there,

Slowly, slowly, painted signs and flatter water.

The river, and even the fires, suspect their separation,

But being thoughtless things, only stir in sleep.

Spring and fall will find them untethered again,

But then their knowledge will be too late.

Had it been bricks and mortar, they would awaken.

Dirt and wind are too subtle, intertwined as dust,

Motes in God's eye, and so He sleeps at peace.

Time will raise all things, walls included.

The Creator stirs, too, then breathes deeper.

Time will raze all things, walls included.

Shiva smiles, not unkindly, covers the wall

With a snow blanket, and walks into the winter wood.