Flood, Part III
This week’s poem, Flood, III, is part of a long poem in nine numbered sections. Each section stands alone, but together they add up to more than the individual parts. There’s been a lot of rain lately in parts of the country (although I guess there are other parts having record heat and drought, so go figure) so I thought I’d bring a little bit of Flood into the blog this week in recognition of the difficulties people are dealing with. Although we’ve had plenty of rain lately at our home, we are blessed not to have any flooding. Though we do have a rather strange looking crop of mushrooms starting in the side yard. . . we’re keeping the dog away from them!
From Flood,
III
The road says
you’re tickling me,
and the water only gurgles.
The road says get back,
get off me,
you don’t belong here,
I’m telling you
leave me alone,
but the water has no ears.
The road says
this is really the last straw,
you’ve gone too far,
there’s no forgiving
what you’ve done,
and the water keeps right on,
spreads its shoulders
over the road, fills the ditch
the road’s been friendly with,
spreads across a field
ready for timothy,
and heads for a house
built on a small rise,
rushes really,
toward that house
on its too-small rise.
This is a personification poem
Personification is when some non-human thing — an animal, object, and idea or emotion –is given human attributes. You probably remember the term from high school. If not, trust me or check out a few examples from literary device’s site. We use personification all the time in common figures of speech without even realizing it. “The walls have ears,” for example. In this case, it’s the road, and by implication the ditch and the silent flood itself, that are treated as if they were human. Personification is extremely common in poetry.
If you enjoyed Flood, III
You’ll find more of my poems on this blog or in the collection Stars Crawl Out From Their Caves, which is also where you can find the remaining parts of Flood. The collection is available in both ebook and print. Missed a poem of the week? Links to prior weeks are on this page.
Have a great week!