Safe

We hurried back, struggling to comprehend
the scale of devastation and what journey’s end
would mean – wondering indeed whether
we still had a home to go to. Aghast, we scanned
fields the dead had sown and reaped forever

transformed to lakes, then villages where cars
had been tossed aside like toys, and scooped-out bars,
churches, schools, where dark lines marked
the height reached by the water, left as scars.
There’d been no warning signs, no Noah’s ark

though those of us who’d been on higher ground
could now inherit the world the tempest drowned
though too few to repopulate
that morning’s massive, muddy funeral mound,
reminding us what might have been our fate.

The radio was silent, even if the word
on the street was help would come – soon enough we heard
helicopters. But the broken men
who landed only muttered something blurred
about how this was it till God knows when.

A black market opened – which only the rich could afford.
The rest of us survived on what we’d stored
in better days, skimping until
re-learning the ancient ways, we could once more
live off the land with long-forgotten skills.

Sometimes I look back, yet I know the past
has gone for good, that no one can forecast
when the day will come we’ll dare to hope
the storm which killed so many was the last,
and trust again illusion’s horoscope.

Tom Vaughan

If you have any thoughts about this poem, Tom Vaughan  would be pleased to hear them