Robert Charles Howard - Deluge

Rain clouds hover in the night
veiling the crystal moon -
spraying steady showers
on the hills and plains below.

The Missouri stirs from slumber
spreading claws of water up its banks
as rain sheets, lashed to horizontal
saturate the fields and valleys.

Illumined by the misted moon
The river’s shoreline grows
by inches through the night -
stealing into ever higher ground.

Daybreak finds new ponds conjoined
and spilled across low lying roads
and TV teasers sound their alarms.
'Stay tuned, tape at 10: 00.'

Downpours to the west and north
saturate Mississippi valleys and
Saint Louis flood gates rumble closed.
Farmers abandon all hope for harvest.

Our screens chant nightmare litanies
of sandbag crews and second floor rescues,
crumbling levies and sunken vehicles -
a twisting farmhouse claimed for driftwood.

The clouds’ reservoirs at last are spent,
the inland sea recedes to lakes
and our weary cousins stumble home
as the Mississippi quietly relearns it banks.

<I>March, 2008</I>

<I>This poem is a recollection of the great flood of 1993 but as it was written the rivers around St. Louis passed over flood stage and the city flood gates were closed. While protecting the city, the gates and levees ship the problem downstream where it intensifies the plight of small towns that are now under water. Continued rain in the Missouri and Mississippi watersheds could cause the current flood to rival that of 1993.</I>

Robert Charles Howard

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