Yesterday rain, today snow, tomorrow, who knows?
The Mississippi River at a gauge in New Orleans stood at 16.79 feet this afternoon. Flood stage is 17 feet. If you’ve been watching flooding around the US and have a good grasp of geography, you’ll realize that all those places getting flooded are along rivers that flow into the Mississippi and, therefore, all that water will eventually make its way downstream to New Orleans and from there into the Gulf of Mexico. So the wet Spring, which has really just started, promises more water to come to New Orleans.
The National Weather service isn’t forecasting the Mississippi River to rise just yet, however. More like a close call, staying just under flood stage for some time. Unless, of course, Spring gets into an even rainier mindset, in which case the forecast will no doubt change.
Of course, here in Northeast Ohio, first it rained, and then it snowed. We’re taking our rain in both solid and liquid form, I guess.
Of course, here in Northeast Ohio, first it rained, and then it snowed. We’re taking our rain in both solid and liquid form, I guess.
Between rain showers, we tried to take our dog to the local dog park, with the idea that he would enjoy running in the mud. It was still warm–the front that turned the rain to snow hadn’t come through yet–and we always have to give him a bath after the dog park visits anyway. So what’s a little more mud?
Well, we didn’t exactly time the showers right. So he got to play in the rain and the mud. He had a grand old time, as you can see from the smug look on his face:
Luckily, it was just a steady shower, not a thunderstorm.
The difference between a little bit of fun in the rain and mud, and dealing with an all out flood, aren’t all that much. Fractions of inches. An hour less rain here or there. Less rain upstream or down.
If you find a couple of people and their extra-muddy dog playing in the rain, it’s a piece of filler “news”, a human-interest story. The story takes longer to run on the news than the few minutes it takes to give the dog a bath.
If you find homes destroyed and water covering what was previously dry land, it’s part of the 24-hour news cycle. A little longer than the dog-bath takes, but not nearly as long as it takes to restore the damage done by the flood.
Flood, II
Water, like sepia ink, seeps
across each valley’s page—
Oh water,
water we are mostly made
(and still afraid) of,
what shingles keep out
and eave spouts channel away—
Twenty inches in twenty hours,
and water lapped my doorstep,
licked my threshold while it considered,
then didn’t enter,
drained away.
Another month, another city, and I’m
perched fifteen hotel floors above danger:
the Ohio washed streets it could now reach,
colored cracks and low places silver-brown,
scrubbed the unseen highway on-ramps
as if only cleaning were on its mind.
Bridges stood neck deep in the river,
their decking mirrored, the hidden
current tugging their frames,
trying to take them beam by beam
down river, where it had taken trees already—
the river’s agenda,
its plans to rise in the future,
spiral organisms
in its water we must not drink—
all this must be believed,
they told it on the news:
a reporter smiled out of the television,
with practiced ease asked those
who’d lived there in the valley
to tell her what they felt.
Filled to the hips, the valley shimmered
behind her bobbing head,
water wicking up the grassy hills.
If you enjoyed Flood, II
You’ll find more of my poems on this blog or in the collection Stars Crawl Out From Their Caves, which is available in both ebook and print.
This week’s poem is part of the multi-part poem Flood, which is found in the above-mentioned collection. Part III was one the blog in an earlier post.
Missed a poem of the week? Links to prior weeks are on this page.
