☀ Today's Poem: "the floods of summer 2018" Xiao Yue Shan

houses neck-deep treading nothing, their good
shutters closed as porcelain drums this land,
ashen silk. fine cotton, handkerchiefs, pajamas,
house slippers—in the irrepressible sea they take on
the shapes of people wanting to be saved.
linen limbs gesturing prayer. terrible wind.
the okayama of july had loved hydrangeas; in summers
past they blued the doorways into fog, ocean
petals, sticky to the touch. it means with eyes closed
you do not think of the roof tiles burning like coal
underneath your palms as you clutch them, waiting
for the water to reach out a murky tongue. for it to taste,
and lap, and swallow. tonight we do not ask the earth
why it turns, save for that it now has its back
towards us. and heaven has breached its own gates
to find even higher ground. a soldier reaches deep
under the opaque, searching the distance, and as
he pulls, a small hand, same color as the water,
is enclosed in his like a pearl. this is how it may
have looked millennia ago. before they came, planted
rice, peaches, built bridges upon the valleys,
ladders toward the mountains. before they walked
until the paths loved their feet. before they fed
their children and named them after colors,
evenings, harbors. sitting at the edges of fields,
shyly green with sprout, they caught
with palms, with ankles, a glowing summer rain.