Waterful World

He told everyone the night before

that it would come, but no one

believed him, left the windows

unshuttered, in some cases open,

left books and other unutterably

precious things outside; a woman

left her beloved labrador tied

to a tree beside the house; now

that tree as every other shakes

like a tender, timid tall man,

the land is liquified, free-flowing,

the waters pour without relent,

without distinction over the island,

sending the island back into

the waters below; sky and earth

become one as before the wind

of creation. Already the boats

are being unmoored, freed from

their tenacious grip to the sea’s

bottom and with the whole earth

confuse up and down in constant

testing of their respective limits.



We will never see that blue again,

a fellow tells him as both swim

in the swelling sea, accompanying

each other through the tumble

of landlessness. Don’t worry,

he tells the distraught swimmer,

I have a hope within simmer

that we will adjust, find a way

—if not today then our progeny—

to live in this waterful world.

Don’t hold your breath, the fellow

says, and begins to tread less

and less, begins to sink, his hat

staying behind to toss about

on the water’s spraying face to

recall for the habitants of earth

a former civilization, a time

when men wore hats in the rain.

The other does not complain, but

remains the same head bobbing

in the waters’ churning, channeling

a diver’s breath to sustain him.



With a mighty mercy the sun

casts light intensely on the deep.

The man who swims, hopeful,

through what was his home suns

himself lying belly-up. Somehow

I knew, he told himself, despite

the forecast of clear skies,

that it would rain, that the floods

would do in those who cannot swim

for good. That this is a different,

less hospitable world, he mused

to himself as the waters caressed

his cheeks, held with its cold hands

his serene body. This sun’s blaze,

although it brings warmth he said

and shut his eyes to let it shine

on his closed lids, cannot burn up

this wet, no. And if somehow,

ages from now, the sun glows

the water up, up into the sky,

surely, sure as land once was,

it will fall back, rain back on us.