When the Waters Come
When the waters come, mountains bow down before it. When the waters come, shorelines turn their back and recede. When the waters come, the buildings of humans, tremble and revert to their elemental selves. When the waters come, the earth sinks beneath it and lies prostrate in the service of the sea. When the waters come, and they will come, there is nothing to do, man and beast, but to step aside, be swept aside, be buried.
In Florida, and North Carolina, and Tennessee, the waters have come. Roads are gone. Bridges are gone. Buildings are gone. The land is reformed. People talk with surprise about the floods they’ve never seen before while standing in canyons and valleys formed by floods that came before, while standing on shorelines that have changed even in their lifetimes. We are the organisms of this time, contributors to a paleosol destined to be, in the fullness of time, a stratum of the earth. A flattened example of what once was.
We like to believe the earth will bow to our whims. We dam the rivers, but the rivers have seen dams before from beavers and ice and landslides. And all the dams have failed because the rivers will run as the water’s come. And we cut roads into the mountains, and the mountains shed them when the waters come. We build houses by the sea and the sea devours them. Why? Because there is beauty in the still water and the sculpted landscape and the quiet times between the storms. There is life in the water, sustenance, and we cherish it. We come from the water and the water will come for us.