WHEN LIFE IS A RAGING RIVER

 

The Sumas Prairie Flood

Getty images

Reuters image

Ministry of Transporation images

CBC photo

This time the river comes from the sky,
an atmospheric river that floods vast areas.
Major highways and bridges collapse.
In long tin barns, thousands of animals drown.
Humans are displaced with no where to go;
climate refugees are now in our back yard,
and tomorrow it could be us.

Skies are dark; the rain pounds down,
relentless, a second storm, a third.
The fourth will be the biggest yet,
they tell us nervously. "Have essentials
packed and ready to go." But go where?
I live on a narrow peninsula with one road out.
Sitting in backed up cars beside a surging sea
feels less safe than staying home, and what does
one take, when one has only two hands,
one grab and go bag, five minutes?

Let it all go, I think, as I have let it all go
so many times before.

In times like these, the givers appear:
driving their boats down what once were streets,
rescuing people and pets; feeding the displaced
in community halls, making coffee, sandwiches,
soup, handing out trays with a smile:
"Have this; it will warm you."

They are sandbagging the dike, in fear
that it will break again in the next storm,
and they will be back where they started.
They are herding terrified cows in water
up to their necks; they are gathering
what animals they can into whatever shelter
they can find. They are on the news,
choked up, but brave, saying, "We won't give up.
Come spring, we'll plant again."

Yet how rebuild in a floodplain, when 
it is certain more floods will come?

"One river gives its journey to the next"
the poet said, "when giving is all we have.
You gave me what you didn't have;
I gave you what I had to give.
Together, we made something greater."

From When Giving Is All We Have by Alberto Rios; Wild Writing. Italicized lines are the poet's.

A series of atmospheric rivers is flooding much of British Columbia, in a scope undreamed of by climate change deniers, but a clue to those of us who understand the climate crisis that we dont have ten or fifteen more years "to turn things around." Climate breakdown is happening now; it is accelerating. We discover how helpless humans are when nature responds to the distress we have caused her. The scope of destruction is greater than can be fully comprehended. There have been some human deaths and uncounted thousands of domestic and wild animal deaths. Livestock trapped in the agriculture industry buildings drowned captive; disposing of the bodies will be an ordeal in itself. Humans are as busy as ants trying to shore up infrastructure against the endless rain. I have no idea what will remain after the fourth and biggest storm early next week. The best of human nature comes out at such times. We  are grateful for the many hands reaching out in compassion to provide assistance. There is no "other" in a crisis, only givers, and helpers. Only humans, struggling together against forces so mighty they humble us. 

shared with earthweal, where we seem to be chronicling the apocalypse, sooner than we expected.