The river runs heavy,

dark and angry along the levee,

its surges threatening

to breach the banks

and turn fertile land

into a swirl of sand and silt,

covering the crops

and turning fields into wildlands.

It sends its scouts

through the places

weakened by weeks of rain,

gaining the slightest turn,

seeping through at first,

then trickle turns into run

and the run churns

through and rips a channel.

The killing water pours

into the lowlands beyond,

ruining farms and barns,

laying hold of the ancestral home

and filling memories with mud.

Nothing built by the hand of man

can stand forever.

All that we have made

to make ourselves gods

on an unstable earth

will one day give way

to him who is God.

H. Arnett

4/28/11