Poem: Flood as Redemption. by Clare Shaw

In knowing the value of light
when it has gone out.
In knowing the true weight of rain:

the carpet will stink
and the fridge will not make it.
In seeing what needs to be done

and in doing it;
wading in up to your waist.
In staring the sky in the face,

in meeting the storm head on
in the drink of it,
in how you were soaked to the skin

in the rain sweeping in;
in how all your rivers were one
in the chemistry of it:

molecules pushed to their limit;
in the moment of pivot
and spill.

In what you thought
would hold forever:
earth gone to water,

trees turned to river;
the shifting of boulder,
the bringing together of neighbour and stranger

in the swim of it.
In what it did
to our town.

In knowing it will come again
and in singing it.
Writing it down.

Copyright © Clare Shaw,
Bloodaxe Books, www.bloodaxebooks.com