Sequoias

In thinking of the sequoias, I remember Tolkien's Ents. I imagine sequoias speaking slowly, maybe one word every ten years. If I listen long enough, sit with them long enough, maybe I will hear a word or two.

In California the sequoias

Are stressed

By four years of drought

Even as South Carolina floods

And floods

And floods again.

Stress arrives

In so many forms.

Today brings with it

Its own stress.

Today

Here

Now

It is not the rain

Or lack of it.

The sequoias live

Thousands of years.

I would like to sit

With sequoias

Hold their branches

Touch their roots

Tell them

This too will pass.

Flash floods

The flash floods must be somewhere else.  Maybe I will find them on the way to the workshop I will attend today.  Just to be sure, I plan to drive the high roads.  

At 4 AM

The warning signal

On the phone

Announced flash floods

Until 8:30 AM.

In the sun

Of 7:45

The only sign

Of excess water

Hangs on the windows,

The cold inside

Pairs with the humidity

Outside.

They dance together.

We can see little else

Through the glass

Just the possibility

Of flash floods

For the next minutes,

The sun through rivulets

Running down the pane.

Flood

It was one of those days... a series of encounters meaningful to me, and, I realize now, to others.  A figurative flood of encounters.  This probably happens all the time.  It*s just sometimes... I notice.

Yesterday was a figurative

Flood.

People washed over

My hull

In public places

And private.

I had lunch

With unplanned people,

Met them coming

And going.

I realized

I was part of the figurative flood

Washing over

The hulls

Of others.

I figure I know

Some of them anyway.

There is rarely any good way

To figure them all.

Yesterday I was flooded

And flood

Both.

Dry wall people... gone

I would rather write reflections on birds or the way light changes in the fall, or even the duck lady out back.  Not surprisingly, the dry wall people grab my attention.  They are not here today... yet still I anticipate their return.  The contractor is still apologizing for the flood.  He has offered to lend us his power washer.  His electrical people are here installing kitchen lights for free.  We are glad we decided to do things from the top... down.  The dry wall people are not here today.   They will probably return tomorrow.

Today the dry wall people

Are gone.

For now.

In their place,

The electrical people

Hammer conduit in position

In the stripped bare

Kitchen ceiling.

For last week*s kitchen flood,

We receive free installation

Of kitchen lighting.

The tile person works upstairs.

He seems

Like he knows

What he is doing.

Today the dry wall people

Are gone.

They will most likely return

Tomorrow.