Now you must face the truth because it is facing you

Finally, the flood has risen to your front 
door and finally you regret the way you 
dismissed the last one with a flick of the 
wrist and a click. We’re all lost now, rising 
one level up at a time, wind shrieking all the 
terror we feel, toys now gurgling underwater 
with the pilings and levees that once kept us afloat.

No more running from the catastrophes of humankind,
thank you very much, acts of God! Lost! All is not lost!
Better yet, you could’ve moved north, up to the Arctic Circle, 
up into the sunless day, where no rain ever balloons into obese 
deluge. Miracles fall by the millions from the sky, shocking no 
one, seen only by wind some days. But you never thought this 
day would come, when batteries go cold and the music 
washes down the river into death, no longer 
commodity but something like salvation.

So yes, you did not run far enough from 
home. Your shadow stuck on you like a 
faithful, unthanked bodyguard. You 
couldn’t get away from the rumble 
of meaningless words, the cackle of 
the hags that track you, determined to cut 
out your eardrums and sew your heart shut.

Now your only hope is climbing the world’s 
tallest tree, from where you’d see your timeline 
as the city glitters in ancient amber. Pure in its 
dreamtime. From here, you might see my house at 
a tiny distance only, see me on the roof waving, when 
I could be in the basement watching you drown on TV.  
From here, you only watch the rubble swirl away. Here, 
you can sit with hawks and swallows, watch them 
run their messages from tower to tower.

Choose this day what you will lose. 
I can’t send my sea kayak down 
your way. The saving will be 
up to the providence of 
thunderbirds and whales 
working in conspiracy to 
redeem your life in a number 
of dramatic missions. Your best 
hope is to hang on to this uttermost 
branch till kingdom come, or just plunge 
in. 

Because oh no, karma is not in the water. 
Only grace and destruction.