Showing posts with label flood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flood. Show all posts

Friday, November 19, 2021

Inventory after Flood

Last night the river flooded
and hauled away my answers.
I should not have stacked them
so near the bank. I'm left 

with questions stored
in small dry places, bowed
shelves, bitter boxes. So far
the roof is holding.

Rain slaps and pummels
it in surges. I start
to unpack questions.
My smashed answers

roll and twist toward
a delta or a dam or just
rocks on the way. Today
I fret and squirm and

say What are they for?
What are they for? 
This only adds to a stuffed
frustrating inventory. 


hans ostrom 2021

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Harvest Blade

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Harvest Blade

Hockey players in uniform float
down a river enlarged
by a massive ice-melt far away.

They hold their sticks high,
rudders without boats. Look, now:
they're followed by last year's

Queen of the Adrenalin Parade,
dressed in a gown of
acetylene blue-and-white.

She rides on a raft made
of synthetic whale-bones.
Violinists from broken

orchestras line the river-bank,
serenading all things that pass
on floods.  In shallows,

fish hear strings' vibrations, shimmer;
and shiver. And the glare from the sun
is a blade. It is a harvest blade.

Copyright 2011