Flood




Not yet, not here; the real floods
are swimming elsewhere: TV, phones, the Facebook posts
of what were kitchens, homes with daily lives.
We look and look away; not us, not now.

This is just water, resting on the fields,
nowhere to go, no deadlines, only stilled
and settled in the rhythms ploughing made
and left unseen, unwritten; until now—

water as shattered mirror, catching
scraps of cloud in token kinship,
the likeness of their faces printed over
field after silver field in jagged splinters.

There’s the river, bloated and careless,
bullying the margins, twisting reeds,
sucking at stone — the bridge, its footings,
arches, and all its underwater strength

jostled by the snatch and shove of currents —
a muscle rolling easy in the water’s coil
and holding back the field drains, muddling paths,
mocking the earnest finger posts and signs.

Our train swings north, away, leaving the light
playing with ditches, dykes while water meadows
repeat their quiet winter work. Not quite
a flood, not yet; not threatening here, this time.

D.A. Prince


If you have any thoughts on this poem,  D.A. Prince   would be pleased to hear them.