"What if the stream should rise and overflow?
The setbacks here, our little yard—we're goners,
all just like that."
"It's not a stream, you know.
It's just the wet a hose makes in the curb,
a watering of lawns, not quite the brown
rush of current an atlas might pick up.
I wouldn't worry too much about a flood."
"Our tree, you know, it thrusts--what? quite a hundred
feet up, that flood would snap it like a stick
and use it to beat time on Shady Lane.
It's all so vulnerable. We build a hedge
and put in burglar proofing for the night
some guy decides he needs our VCR
to round his little day. We buy a dog
and aerosol the ants out of the driveway.
All that it takes is one efficient storm,
a little wind, a couple clouds, and someone,
gray suits we never voted for, decides
we are disasters in the technical
and economic sense."
"The sprinkler ran
a little long next door. They went away
this weekend and some valve stuck open. That's
not Noah, and the elephants are still
down at the Zoo. You see them on the way,
a pair of them, trying to climb aboard
our station wagon? One, one coffee cup
came floating westward down the curbside towards
the California culvert, and you're checking
the median to see if trees still show
their topmost twiglets mirrored on the sea."
"I worked so hard just training that clematis
to climb where put. I hate to see it wash
"downstream, a meal for some bright-stickled fish
who doesn't know the lubbers in the house
who made the dirt mature enough to bear.
A man moves landwards when he thinks an oar
would make a trellis."
"Look, there comes the truck
of sprinkler repairmen. Look, dear, we are saved."
"You're making fun of me."
"Disaster comes
to every day the sun comes up. Sufficient
unto that day are dishwasher and bath."
"Let's go out back and check the runner beans.
They don't need much to burn. It's all so quick."
This appeared in The Listening Eye with the title "Kit Talks Back to Wally."
This appeared in The Poetry Bus.
Iffy, but rain more likely than disaster
Tonight. Disaster later in the week.
Volcanoes on the cities of the plain,
A flood and instability to follow
Cold, like the primal disengaging wind
Across the surface of unlighted skies,
Empty and without hope of being filled,
Expected, as is promised every year,
Delivered rarely. Make your reservations.
Eat first. Say ‘bye. Dress for adversity.
The cormorants are coming. They bring news
From Iowa: new prairies have been found
Studded with galleons, like golden nails
On inky beds. Wind freshening, the east
Surprised by dolphins. Three old men walked out
Of an abandoned mine in Agate, late
Last Tuesday morning, asking for a beer
And word of Good Queen Bess, fetters around
Their ankles. More on this if there is more.
Naive to think the upturned earth
Disgorged the spoils of the Spanish mains.
We’re landlocked here. For what they’re worth,
Wormcasts abound. Rewarded by rains,
Robins rejoice in booty, loot
They’re engineered both to digest
And to expect. With wormy fruit,
The unimaginative do best.
Tough to play pirate with these clumps.
Compress them into diamonds, sure--
I did that every day and proved
Mountains by increments were moved.
Nothing comes easy but the pure
Projected source of perfect dumps.
This appeared in Life & Legends
