Texture Tuesday ... storm

For those of us who are not there

we watch the news,

we listen.

We try not to worry ... too much.

Many will write about this one in the days to come.

There will be expressions of this event that go far beyond what I am capable of here ...

why, the mere thought of all the animals

and my throat closes.

I have a very hard time thinking about them, their helplessness.

Where will they go ... how will they manage.

Like a gift, 

Maya Stein's poem, her weekly offering for 10-Line Tuesday,  arrived in my mailbox filled with balm.

: : :

the geese in the mudhole

We drove by them yesterday, three hours before the storm made landfall.

They were bobbing in a lopsided circle in the shallow water, like teens

at a square dance waiting for instructions. In the car, sleeping bags, flashlights,

and a mounting urgency to find elusive safety. The trees looked reckless,

power lines dripping and swaying like my uncle's heart rate the week

before he died. Two days ago, I watched a woman feed them from a bag

of ripped-up bread, and thought about the nuisance they were, mucking the park

with their wattle and filth. Now, I envy their animal certainty, this buoyant grace

that shrinks from me each passing hour as I bend a nervous ear to the news,

while they lilt and flutter with each wave, admiring the views.

: : :

Thank you to Kim Klassen for her texture, sonnet magic,

which I applied over an iPhone shot & altered with apps.

To view more images from the group, they're HERE.