‌Everything Is Still

We follow the creek path west twisting and turning with the water until unfolding

across a footbridge.

A hawk soars on air currents.

A prairie dog chirps an urgent warning.

We trek up and over a hill down past the cemetery

to the fork at the road that leads to Lewistown,

the little neighboring town.

We walk along the shoulder of the road but soon

realize our foolishness and walk right down the center on the double yellow line.

“Imagine, George.

We’re part of the Rose Parade and this line is the parade route.

We have to follow it exactly until we get to the very end, but

be careful not to step in horse manure.

Think of what those marching

band members have to walk through when they follow the horses every year. Kind of hard to march and play a tuba while watching for horse turds

at the same time.”

George prances beside me glancing up

wagging his stumpy tail.

A few more miles and the yellow line leads us to the intersection

of the cemetery road

and Lewistown’s main street.

South toward the baseball diamond nothing moves.

North toward the businesses everything is still.

“Come on, buddy. Let’s see what’s happening.”

‌Lewistown

the French bakery the guitar shop

the outdoor ice-skating rink

I learned to skate there as a little girl holding Dad’s hands.

Clinging to his legs when the evening train rushed by

on the tracks east of the rink.

I conjure the hot, sweet scent of kettle corn. The weight of heavy, wet mittens.

Across the street is the carousel.

Endangered tigers, elephants sea turtles, arctic wolves.

I circumnavigate the platform from animal to animal.

George picks his way along

the planks of the floor behind me.

I climb into an old-fashioned sleigh pulled by two polar bears.

George sniffs the giant panda nearby then settles on the floor at my feet.

sounds of calliope music

young mothers and fathers lifiing tiny children onto the animals’ backs laughing when the carousel jolts to life

I will the wooden slats in the ceiling to rotate slowly at first then faster

until I get dizzy and close my eyes.

carousel picks up speed

everything pulls slightly toward center

world whirls animals come alive

music grows louder, dissonant animals growl and snort

carousel twists and dips drops hard and fast jerks me awake

Twilight is fading.

The railroad tracks gleam

in the light of the rising moon. Nearby, a cricket sings.

George lifis his head and cocks his dark ears.

My head still swirls, but the earth at least, is still.

My muscles remember the pack of dogs and my senses tune to threat.

I step down from the carousel. George stands and stretches.

Jumps down afier me.

Everything is quiet. Darkness settles around us. Even the cricket is still.

“Well, Georgie, we better head home while we have the moonlight.

I’m sorry I kept us out so long.”

George dances a circle and falls into step.

I climb the embankment to the railroad tracks.

We walk in silence watching the moon rise timing our strides to the span of the railroad ties. Bats dart and dodge high above our heads.

A great horned owl hoots.

Its mate answers in the distance. Gravel crunches beneath our feet.

We turn off the tracks and head toward the path.

Ten more minutes and we are back again in our own neighborhood

heading for home.

‌Summer

Oppressive heat.

We sleep in the basement to stay cool.

Leave windows wide open.

Hope for breeze. The sun pounds the town.

We stay inside subterranean, like prairie dogs in

our underground den.

‌Worries

Since the tornado, I’m terrified of getting sick or hurt.

I remember the pantry

at Great-Grandma’s house.

The bloated top of an ancient can of potted meat.

Botulism.

I check every can of food for bulging or bad smells.

How long do canned goods stay edible? Do pasta and rice go bad?

Boiling food only adds to my water concerns.

We’ve finished all the drinking water from the supermarket.

We’re raiding bottled water from local gas stations around town.

Every time I ride anywhere on my bike I make a point of coming home with

at least one new case of water.

The supermarket still has

a few jugs of distilled water

but I don’t know if it’s safe to drink and I keep forgetting

to look it up at the library. If things get really bleak

I suppose we’ll just have to risk it.

Each day I grow more concerned about what will happen if

our food and water supplies run out. I read expiration dates.

Organize our food stores to ration cans with the longest shelf lives.

I continue scavenging

through homes and businesses but I worry about the day

those supplies will be gone too.

Every once in a while I find

a vegetable garden still producing a few carrots or radishes

from earlier seasons.

I cook a pumpkin I find growing in an old compost pile

but the recipe in Mom’s cookbook calls for baking the pumpkin before mashing it and all I can do is chop it up and boil it.

The whole endeavor turns out to be

much more work than I anticipate and the results don’t taste very good.

I search for fresh fruit from the trees around town

but last autumn

the fruit was either too sour or too wormy.

It’s hard not to worry.

‌Storm

We are swimming at the lake when a storm rolls in.

I am in the water.

George runs back and forth along the length of the dock barking at me.

We both hear thunder.

Clouds amass above the foothills. Jagged lightning divides the sky.

I remember soccer coaches calling everyone off the field during practice.

The whole team gathered under

the picnic shelter to wait for thirty minutes before heading back out.

The hairs on the back of George’s neck stand up as more thunder rumbles over us.

I swim to the dock.

Pull myself out of the water. Grab backpack, towel, shoes. Run for home.

Hot drops of rain pelt the street.

I fall into the rocking chair on the porch.

Towel my hair.

George whines and looks at the door asking to be let inside.

I rub him between the ears.

“Oh, Georgie, so brave in the face of looters and yet so scared of a little thunder.”

We retreat indoors.

‌Conflagration

It rains throughout the afiernoon.

Occasional claps

of thunder and lightning.

The brittle, dry land sighs with relief

at the welcome showers.

Lightning continues through the night patterns of light

on the walls of the basement where we lie

listening to the storm.

I am shocked awake

by a sudden explosion of thunder blinding light.

George barks and whines. I reach for him.

The smell of ozone wafis through the air.

“It’s okay, Georgie. I think lightning must have struck pretty close, that’s all.

That’s an awful smell.”

I head upstairs

out into the front yard. The rain has stopped but the wind is blowing.

No moon.

I can’t see until lightning and thunder strike again

painting everything in a flash of brilliant clarity and deafening noise.

Again, the ozone smell fills the air.

An orange light glows in the sky behind my mother’s roof.

I stare.

Try to reconcile moving light in the middle

of so much darkness.

Then the ozone smell is replaced with smoke.

“George! It’s a fire!”

‌It Happens So Fast

Back into the house. Dining room.

Kitchen.

Out into the backyard.

Beyond the fence in the open space a huge cottonwood tree is ablaze.

A dark scar mars the side where lightning struck.

Flames lick the branches. Encircle the trunk.

The wind picks up.

A giant limb crashes onto the split-rail fence and the fence catches fire.

Sparks and embers rise into the sky.

The fire travels.

Engulfs my brothers’ fort in the corner maple tree.

Burning two-by-fours fall to the ground. Now the maple is ablaze too.

The fire consumes the fence.

Eats its way around

the perimeter of the yard toward the house.

It happens so fast I don’t think about the possibility

that I might be in danger.

The wind blows in from every direction. This fire is famished.

It swallows the length of the fence then leaps to the Nortons’ house.

Within minutes it’s licking their second-story windows.

Sparks blow from the Nortons’ house to our roof.

“George! Come!”

‌What to Save?

We run back into the house. Stand there.

I don’t know what to save.

family photos? artwork on the walls?

What meaning does any of it have if no one ever comes back again?

My water supply and food are in the garage but the mudroom door is hot to the touch and I choke on smoke billowing up

from the crack underneath. The garage is already on fire.

I run back into the living room. Find my shoes.

My backpack’s on the floor where I dropped it.

I grab it

slam open the front door

and drag George out of the house.

‌Ashes, Ashes

for hours we’re hypnotized watching our home

and houses up and down the block devoured, consumed, destroyed

the fire is ravenous

but flames never reach over here across the street where we sit paralyzed

in the heat

the wind dies down the rain resumes douses everything

drowns the last of the flames

thick, white smoke rises from burnt-out foundations

skeletons of cars sit

black and unrecognizable where garages stood

my skin is plastered with wet ash the taste of smoke coats

my mouth and nose

the sun rises alien and green

on the smoky horizon

I’m filled with despair for all I’ve lost

my brothers’ fort

the yard where Mom married Paul the first home baby Trevor ever knew obliterated

and my supplies of food and fuel my mom’s van

the bicycle with the trailer all destroyed

now I am truly stuck here

I can surely find another bike

but

what are the chances I’ll find another car that will still start afier two years and

two winters

any flirtations I had with making my own way

back to civilization burned to the ground

along with my neighborhood

stand up

limbs unfold stiffly

pull my backpack over my shoulders tug at George’s collar

he lies still on the porch follows my movements

another tug

come on, old friend

there’s nothing here for us now let’s go

he rises slowly

the trauma of the fire has aged us both overnight

together we walk into the smoky sunrise toward the lake trail to Dad’s house

‌Aftermath

The smell of smoke lasts for days.

Mom’s street is not the only one destroyed. Lightning caused fires all around Millerville. Dozens of houses burned.

I have to throw away my clothes. Even my backpack reeks.

As I empty everything out

my hand closes around something

wrapped in plastic at the bottom of the pack.

A flattened Twinkie.

A fossil from my duplicitous life Before Evacuation.

I stretch out on a blanket in the shade close my eyes, and eat the spongy cake.

It tastes as if nothing has changed.

‌Treasure

Afier Mom’s house

is reduced to cinders I search everywhere for signs of her.

I scour Dad’s house from top to bottom hunting for anything

she might have touched.

I find a birthday card she wrote to Jennifer.

Discover a stash

of my elementary school tests and reading logs.

Use my finger to

trace Mom’s signature over and over again.

The greatest treasure is a postcard she

sent me from Washington, DC, when I was little. She printed in block letters so

I could sound out the words by myself.

I tuck the card in my pocket next to Elliott’s book report. I carry it with me wherever I go.

‌Postcard

‌Tantrum

Night is the hardest.

I stay busy during the day gathering food and supplies.

Night, though, my mind is

more busy with fears than tasks.

I try praying a few times but I feel self-conscious and awkward.

I find a spiral notebook and a pen and write a letter

to God instead.

I remember Mom’s strict rules for How to Be a Good Correspondent. Always start with gratitude.

Dear God,

Just in case you had anything to do with it (and if you do actually exist), thanks for helping save George and me from the fire, and for helping us find food and water

and all the stuff we need every day. We appreciate all the help we can get.

Adjust the solar garden light. Stare at the wall.

Why the hell haven’t you rescued me yet?????

Cross it out. Try again.

Why the hell haven’t you rescued me yet?????

I was wondering if you might be able to give me some help down here? I mean, if there is any way you could manage a little miracle and

GET ME THE HELL OUT OF HERE I WOULD APPRECIATE IT!!!!!!

I mean, seriously, God, am I being tested or something?? What more do you want from me???

I’m doing my part. I’m keeping us alive. When are you going to show up and start contributing a little, huh? Would it really be that hard, in light of everything else you’ve supposedly accomplished?

WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU????

Heat roils in my chest.

I hurl the pen and the notebook across the room

knock books and knickknacks off the dresser and

onto the floor.

I storm into the kitchen open the cupboard

and pick up a stack of dinner plates.

Slam out the back door into the dark yard

and throw each plate as hard as I can

against the cinder-block wall at the back of the property.

The sound of shattering ceramic echoes off the neighboring houses.

When all the plates are broken I run back inside and gather up as many drinking glasses

as I can carry.

When they are smashed to pieces I go back once more and

drag out all the empty bottles.

When everything has been reduced to sharp shards scattered across the dead grass

I collapse on the back stoop.

The dark braces for more. Holds its breath.

The ground glitters with broken glass.

A cricket breaks the silence. An owl hoots. Another echoes a response.

A bullfrog sings nearby.

A black nose pushes under my elbow.

“Hey there, big guy. I’m sorry if I scared you.

You’re going to have to go out to pee in the front yard from now on.

Too much broken glass out here.”

I’m no longer fuming just exhausted.

I have no complaint with God.

If God exists

it’s entirely possible that

I have him or her to thank for helping us survive

as long as we have.

I can throw all the tantrums I want and it doesn’t change a thing

or bring my parents back.

I am the most ancient teenager

on the planet.

‌Rebuilding

Everything seems flammable and we are jumpy and anxious.

George leaves the room whenever I strike a match.

I raid the kitchen at the megachurch.

Load a neighbor’s red wagon with enough water

to last several weeks at Dad’s house.

Try to rebuild our food stores but without Mom’s van stocking up for winter

will take much longer.

I pull the wagon breaking into houses businesses

up and down the streets systematically searching for food

water firewood

Some houses still smell awful

from the carcasses of dead pets or rotted food.

Others seem almost normal as if someone were just there or stepped out for a moment.

As the days get hotter I scavenge enough

to feel cautiously optimistic about our prospects for surviving another winter.

‌Can Opener

George loves the can opener and the bounty it liberates every night for his dinner.

I do not share his enthusiasm.

Afier so many months of eating nothing

but canned goods

fresh food is a memory I’ve forgotten.

My tongue has amnesia.

My teeth wouldn’t know what to do with anything firmer than

a chickpea.

Food is fuel. Nothing more.

no pleasure no flavor

Everything cooked. Everything sofi.

Reduced to salty or sweet.

Indiscernible from one can to the next.

Only minor variations in color or texture.

chunky or soupy mushy or meaty

One night I dream I am eating a grilled cheese sandwich

with fresh tomato and three kinds of cheese on sourdough bread.

In the morning, my pillowcase is wet with drool.

‌Garden

An idea plants itself in my brain.

Grandpa always had a summer plot in the community garden.

I ride to their apartment and rifle

through drawers in the kitchen and pantry until I find a bundle of faded seed packets held together with a stiff old rubber band.

Do seeds expire?

I spread them on the kitchen table.

Zucchini Radishes Marigolds Carrots Spinach Tomatoes Cauliflower Zinnias

Read the backs of the envelopes and am crushed to see

I should have started the seeds

indoors two months ago.

Apparently growing seasons are specific.

Should I wait until next spring?

Is it really possible I could still be here next spring?

Photos on the front of the packets make my mouth water.

Even the flowers look delicious.

I decide to try half now and save half for the future

whatever the future turns out to be.

‌Farmer Girl

Once again the library saves the day.

Provides everything I could ever hope to learn about how

to plant and tend a vegetable garden.

(Back in civilization when I grow up

I think I might want to be a librarian.)

No time to waste so I get right to work.

Use Grandpa’s plot for luck.

The garden is so neglected and overgrown it’s hard to tell it was ever anything

but a vacant lot full of tumbleweeds.

I am undeterred.

The thought of fresh homegrown vegetables wakes me each day like an impatient rooster.

By the end of the week

I am sunburned and so sore from all the weeding and clearing and digging

and bending and hoeing but I’ve done it and my seeds are in.

I write the names of each vegetable on Popsicle sticks to mark the rows.

I haul water from the lake.

I even make a scarecrow out of an upside-down rake, a flannel shirt and a pair of overalls.

The birds don’t seem to care but it scares George.

optimism satisfaction pride

Unfamiliar feelings take root in the soil of my tired soul.

‌Seedlings

The radishes are sprouting! I have created life.

I feel like God.

‌Twenty-Five Days Later

I sit in my garden

on an upside-down bucket holding a warm, white radish.

I brush away the dirt and marvel

at how perfectly exquisite it is.

It smells like earth and life

and prosperity.

It tastes like euphoria and hope

and laughter.

the bite the crunch the tang the sweet

I roll it on my tongue until my stomach

gets jealous and demands satisfaction.

It does not disappoint.

‌Watercolor Sky

Starts to drizzle.

There is no thunder or lightning. It just rains. And rains and rains.

The scorched little town is thirsty.

The cool moisture is a welcome change.

Washes away the trauma of fire and devastation. Nourishes the growing garden.

Like a blessing.

‌Deluge

Afier losing count of rainy days I hear a sound I haven’t heard in over two years.

Water running in the house.

I look in the bathroom and the kitchen

half expecting to see a tap lefi on

but find nothing.

I go down the stairs to the basement

which is hardly more than an unfinished storage space.

Water gushes up

from a drain in the floor.

I grab a bucket

but the thick, muddy water bubbles in faster than I can bail.

More water pours down the walls from under tiny basement windows.

It is as if the earth has

drunk its fill and

the rain has decided to come live with me.

It moves in bag and baggage.

I have no choice but

to watch the water rise.

‌A Plague of Water

I monitor the basement constantly.

The water rises well above the bottom steps

before the rain outside finally lets up.

I pull on my father’s slicker and Jennifer’s rain boots.

Venture out, leaving George at home safe and dry.

Streets are rivers.

Yards are cluttered with debris. Hubcaps. Porch furniture.

Broken fence posts.

Everything is littered with leaves, branches, mud.

Where my garden was there is now a pond. Popsicle sticks float on the surface.

Ducks paddle around my scarecrow’s knees. The sky is the color

of bruises. Matches the hue of my new mood.

‌Flash Flood

I pick my way to the trail. Hike up the rise above the bike path and

look down on the creek.

A stream once narrow enough to jump across is now a torrential river dozens of feet wide rushing with a ferocity I’ve never seen.

Bridges and paths are washed away.

Fences are pushed over or gone.

Roads are wiped out

leaving jagged edges of asphalt like broken teeth in

a gaping mouth.

A red barn door crashes past spins around

jams against the bottom of the train trestle

creating new obstacles for

the water to pummel and thrash. A pair of tractor tires tumbles by like toys in a bathtub.

I start to back up but

the deep muck wants to suck the boots off my legs.

I tug my foot

lose my balance and slip down the embankment toward the rushing rapids.

I scream

but the roar of the water drowns my voice.

And there’s no one here to hear me.

‌Trapped

I grab

at tufis of grass as I slide

down

the muddy bank but

my hands can’t

grip

and I fall into

the torrent.

I come up sputtering head

above water shoulders out but

my foot lodged

between two rocks. The current

slams me

like a battering ram against

a concrete retaining wall.

I’m trapped.

Even as the river

pins me again and again I feel it

rising.

I have to

get out of here or

I will die.

‌Rope

tree branch rope swing

big knot draped over pipe on wall

reach

out of water up

farther fingers barely graze

too high

one foot stuck one free

brace against rock pull hard

harder

foot won’t budge

wiggle toes in boot wiggle pull wiggle

pull pull pull

foot starts to slide

cry out

deep breath pull

more until foot

escapes boot water slams body against

wall breathe

brace

feet on rocks count three push

up reach stretch up reach

rope unhooks! swings

way out across river away

water slams body

watch arc breathe wait brace push reach

grab rope! hold hard tight

pull push climb push climb pull pull push up out up out

to safety

‌Wrung Out

I drag

hands and knees up

the muddy bank.

Collapse in the

soggy grass. Exhausted. Shivering.

Ghost water still slams me slams me against the wall.

My muscles don’t know I’m safe. I’m safe.

I don’t feel safe.

I can’t hear anything over the rush

of the angry flood.

The din and vibration of the rabid river expand into my chest and my throat.

Grief presses on the backs of my eyes and blinds me.

I wail

hugging myself rocking.

‌Of Course

of course

I am alone so no one hears me cry

comes to comfort or help me

of course they don’t

they can’t because they aren’t so of course they don’t

there is no they

the river stole my boots

my socks

my feet are gashed and bloody

my hands are raw

rope-burned rock-sliced

but there is nothing to do

of course

except haul myself up from the ground and

go home

‌Parable

Home in bed

embraced in my comforter

curled around sweet, steady George I remember a parable

from a friend’s bar mitzvah.

A man who drowned in a flood arrives in heaven, angry that God didn’t save him. God reminds

the man that he sent him rescuers in a canoe, a rowboat, and a helicopter, but the man kept telling the rescuers, “No, God will save me.” He was too foolish to recognize God’s help.

It’s one thing to stay alive.

I’m managing that with or without God’s help.

But how much longer can I stay sane? How much more can I bear alone?

Elliott’s words

float through my brain.

“I think if I were the Challenge Girl, it would be even harder for me to be alone for all that time.”

The challenges of fires and floods

can be overcome with courage and wit, but this feeling of loss and loneliness might just prove too great to endure even for this Challenge Girl.

‌After the Flood

The world is strange.

A floating propane tank tumbles downriver crashes into a boulder and explodes.

Wild animals

wander through town disoriented and displaced from flooded habitats.

And rattlesnakes invade the neighborhoods

in search of dry ground

afier their culverts overflow.

Afier surviving so much for so long

I swear

I will not die

from a stupid snakebite or an encounter with

a mountain lion. When we’re outside

I ring the cowbell from Dad’s bike races.

Stay to the center of streets.

Eyes peeled

for anything coiled or crouched.

Ears tuned

for rattles or growls.

When the cold weather finally arrives and sends the snakes into hibernation I exhale for the first time in centuries.

‌Another Birthday

I do not celebrate. Push aside all feelings about turning fifieen.

Every day is just another

to withstand and overcome. Every night is just a Pyrrhic victory of survival.

Emma and Ashanti already had their birthdays.

I didn’t remember.

If a birthday falls in the forest

but there’s no one there to celebrate do we still get older?

‌October

First snowfall.

Ongoing hunt

for food and fuel.

Basement water’s gone but leaves a nasty smell.

The creek is swollen

but has receded some.

I wonder if it will freeze completely or flow

through the winter.

‌Acceptance

(n.) the act of believing; coming to terms with something; recognition

‌Sanctuary

I love the library.

My own personal book church. Safety.

But I’m losing patience with fiction. The challenges and triumphs of fictional characters only make me feel worse about myself.

Novels end nicely and neatly with all obstacles overcome. Loose ends tied up.

My own story just keeps unraveling with a depressing predictability.

In fourth grade, Mrs. Hawkins taught us three kinds of literary conflicts:

humans against humans humans against nature humans against themselves

I don’t need to read novels to understand the challenges of human survival.

Don’t tell me about tragic heroes on epic quests. I am Penelope

weaving the days away waiting for Odysseus to return.

‌Emily

I hated poetry in school but for some reason I love browsing in the poetry section.

There is something about poetry being nonfiction

but not factual.

The most intimate personal thoughts

—things people would never dream of saying out loud in middle school—

right there on the page in black and white.

I choose books based on the titles and whether the poets’ names sound like people I might like.

e. e. cummings is a rebellious teenager who refuses to follow any rules

and Billy Collins is an eleven-year-old kid who lives next door.

I wonder if T. S. Eliot is a man or a woman.

One day

I’ll go to college with poetic friends sit in coffee shops

‌write stories about

the olden days of the imminent threat

the trials and tribulations I endured.

I want a poetic friend to keep me company explore alongside me

help me forage for food and fuel. I run my hands along the spines looking for women’s names.

I find Emily Dickinson. The book falls open.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers – That perches in the soul –

And sings the tune without the words – And never stops – at all –

Well, that’s true.

I have never stopped hoping

my parents will come back for me or at the very least

someone will pass through town and rescue me.

But there are many days when the act of hoping feels even more difficult

than the never-ending work of

gathering food and fuel.

If Emily Dickinson is right and

hope is a bird perching in my soul then my hope hovers

on the verge of flying away at any moment.

‌Mary‌

With Emily in my backpack

I move farther down the aisle to New and Selected Poems

by Mary Oliver.

The woman on the cover

gazes at something out of view as if she doesn’t know

she is a poet and

she is being photographed for the front of a book jacket. She looks pensive.

I open to a random page.

The Summer Day

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean—

the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down— who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifis her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

I mark the page with my finger flip the book closed

so I can study

the author photograph again.

I search Mary Oliver’s face for a clue about what drew her attention

off to the side of the camera.

I open to the poem again study the words on the page.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields…

I have learned to pay attention too.

All the time I’ve spent combing this town

for every salvageable

piece of food bottle of water

possible stick of firewood.

I pay attention to the weather and the seasons

to what’s growing what’s dying

how much daylight is lefi in an afiernoon.

If I didn’t pay attention I would have

frozen or starved to death

a long time ago.

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields…

I’ve been idle sometimes. Have I been blessed?

I have certainly been lucky

not to have been injured or killed to have survived this long alone

despite the fact that I’m only fifieen and I should be thinking about dating and

homework and Friday night football games not scavenging for food

and wondering if I’ll survive another winter.

Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?

Doesn’t everything die at last Doesn’t everything die

too soon? Oh my God.

I can’t believe this never occurred to me before.

Is it possible they haven’t returned because they didn’t survive?

Could they have died not knowing that I had been lefi behind?

Could they really have died not knowing that I had been lefi behind?

It makes sense.

As painful as it is to even think the thought it explains

everything.

‌novacula Occami

Something must have happened to my parents. Something did happen to my parents.

Otherwise they would have returned by now.

There is no scenario I can dream up

in which my parents discover I am missing and don’t immediately come for me.

Even a foreign attack on the government couldn’t stop them.

A quiet truth grows up from the core of the earth and into the core of my body.

I’m not sure how I know, but I do.

I even try to go back to

how I felt a few minutes ago.

Try to believe they are out there somewhere coming for me.

But I can’t.

There is no doubt in my mind.

They are never coming back.

‌Nothing and Everything

The knowledge that my parents are dead changes nothing about my daily life.

Winter is still coming and I still have to prepare.

What has changed is my anxiety and sense of urgency.

They are gone.

I used to worry about

wandering too far from the house or missing a rescue party

but I don’t anymore.

I work hard during the day and sleep well at night.

No more nightmares. Sometimes I even sing.

It’s not that I don’t grieve the loss

of my family or feel the acute emptiness of being so alone.

It’s just that my grief and loneliness are no longer burdened by hope

that things will change.

I can’t control the future and

I’m powerless over everything except what’s happening

right in front of me.

If rescue comes, it comes. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t.

‌Even Still

I can still bathe

in the light of the moon as it rises huge

and orange in the east and in the

expanse of constellations that spill across the sky on a clear, cold night.

I can still marvel at a hawk

soaring overhead

with a snake in its talons. I am still here.

‌Ceconciliotion

(n.) the act of restoring to harmony; resolution; reunion

‌Wild and Precious

I’m officially in love with Mary Oliver.

I envy the confidence of her poems

and I draw strength from the possibility that I, too, might one day understand my place in

the natural world.

I am certain

that the question

she asks at the end of “The Summer Day”

is intended just for me:

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

I don’t know

what might be in store down the road

but I know I won’t waste another day agonizing over

what I can’t control.

I am going to make sure

my one wild and precious life is spent living as fully and completely as I can

and if that means living alone with an aging rottweiler

and eating canned food until I’m an old woman so be it.

‌Blizzards

I have to dig a path for George to go out to pee. Sometimes he just goes in the snow on the porch.

We stay warm by the woodstove.

The storms leave behind a sparkling world of ice.

The sun slices cold through the sharp blue and every tree twig, stone, fence post is enshrined in glittery prisms.

George struggles on the slick glass sidewalk

but I push off and slide for several thrilling feet.

We play in the wintry beauty until I can’t feel my toes. The sound of my laughter echoes up and down the street.

‌Spring Flowers

Afier months of cold warm weather finally subdues winter.

Green sprouts emerge

out of the dark, moist earth and buds appear on branches.

In the front yard

the redbud tree explodes into thousands of

tiny purple blossoms.

Daffodil and tulip bulbs push their tenacious stems up from the ground and burst into boisterous color.

Purple larkspur grow rogue and tall from the cracks

in the middle of streets and sidewalks.

Gaillardia bloom in red and yellow clusters on

the mounds of rock and soil

that used to be the creek path.

Black-eyed Susans, purple coneflowers, and multicolored cosmos decorate alleys, yards and vacant lots.

It seems the floodwaters scattered more than debris and destruction.

They also sowed new seeds in places where flowers never used to grow.

New beginnings for the battered town. New beginnings for my weary heart.

‌Summer Advice

As the days pass

and the light elongates

the temperatures reach upward and I reach back

to the poets

to Mary Oliver’s summer advice to fall down in the grass though the grass in Millerville grows riotously long

afier so many seasons with no tending.

I stroll through the fields

play with feeling idle and blessed

ponder my one wild and precious life

Could my life be any wilder? Or more precious?

If Emily Dickinson’s hope is a thing with feathers

then there are many

flocks of hope flying overhead nesting noisily

in the trees and hedges

all around.

The beginning

of my fourth year alone in this place

yet Mother Nature insists on optimism.

‌Autumn Fruit

Plums fall to the earth in messy piles of red and purple sweetness.

Apricots and peaches hang like juicy jewels buzzing with bees.

Apples are so abundant their branches bow all the way down to the ground.

In the abandoned garden at Millerville Elementary School one enchanted apple tree yields six astonishing varieties.

I am a fairy-tale princess picking red, green, yellow, and blush- colored apples from different limbs of the same tree.

Teeth break skin. Tongue licks juice. Shiver-pleasure ripples through me. Fruit flesh in my mouth.

I eat my fill

and fill my pack.

‌Interlopers

George wakes up stiff and limping

so I leave him home and trek out alone.

I scavenge among the orchards behind the retirement villas in my mother’s old neighborhood.

I load my backpack and am crossing the street when a loud rumbling vibrates the ground.

I freeze, unable to translate the sound. It’s my imagination. Has to be.

I close my eyes. Will the rumbling to stop. But the sound isn’t in my head.

The whir and chop of a helicopter comes closer.

rescuedangerlootersinvaders?

‌Giant’s Boot

I drop my backpack. Run as fast as I can toward the side yard of the nearest house.

Throw myself into

a cluster of spirea bushes. Tuck down into the smallest space possible.

A Chinook helicopter materializes overhead. Its great, gray body blocks the sun.

Military? Friend or foe?

When I was little Dad teased me

when formations of Chinooks flew over. I thought they looked like huge boots with propellers at each end.

Dad made up stories about a careless giant whose shoes kept flying off his feet.

Engine rumble continues. Doesn’t recede.

I crawl to the front corner

of the house.

The helicopter hovers over the lake

down past the end of the street.

I backtrack around to the backyard.

Skirt the deck. Climb over the split-rail fence.

Hug the houses. Keep ears and eyes on the sky for other helicopters.

Pick my way from yard to yard toward the end of the block and the west side

of the lake park.

Stay low in the shadows.

Cut north toward

the wetlands preserve. Scramble over the hill. Drop and belly crawl into the willow thickets on the north lakeshore. Sneak toward the water and the sound of

the helicopter.

The Chinook hovers above the lake.

Creates whitecaps

pulsing out in all directions. Hangs there several minutes.

Rises up and flies over the boathouse

on the southern shore. Lowers down again.

Disappears out of sight. Red dust clouds the air and I know it landed

on the baseball diamond behind the parking lot.

If these are looters they are far more

sophisticated and prepared than the men on trucks years ago.

If they aren’t looters this could mean rescue.

This could be the chance I’ve been waiting for

all these lonely months and years.

But they could also be invaders

from another country. The imminent threat?

Maybe they are the reason for the whole evacuation in the first place?

My heart slams back and forth almost as loud

as the helicopter.

I have to see what’s happening without being seen.

‌Spy

The east end lake path is the shortest

but wide open and exposed. Visible to anyone.

Nowhere to hide.

And whoever’s on board

the chopper could just as easily be coming down the trail

from either direction. The last thing I want is to walk straight into someone

or something unprepared.

My mind works faster than my heart pounds.

Keep hidden

no matter what.

It’s my only advantage. Can’t risk being seen until I know

what I’m dealing with.

Stay deep in the willows. Scramble along coyote paths. Zigzag through thickets toward the west end

of the lake.

The sound of the engine cuts off.

I freeze.

Can’t hear anything but water lapping on the shore.

My own breathing.

One careful step at a time. Aware of every sound I make.

Men’s voices coming closer. Can’t discern what they say.

Voices grow louder then shifi direction and fade.

Count to fifiy. Creep to the edge of the trail.

Peek out as the men turn away from the lake

toward the east end of the neighborhood.

Wait another moment.

Dash across the trail

into a stand of cottonwood trees.

‌And But

I will not let my fear of these unknown men

sabotage what might be my only chance at being saved AND

I refuse to let my desperate hope for rescue cloud my judgment and put myself in danger.

How many times have I been tested since the evacuation? How much more will I have to endure?

Blizzards. Looters. Tornados. Dogs. Injury. Fires. Floods.

Hunger. Fear.

And the deepest loneliness imaginable.

I have faced impossible obstacles. Conquered every challenge thrown at me.

Whether these men offer friendship or threats I can only keep George and myself safe if

I can figure out who they are

and what they’re doing in Millerville. I am afraid of being discovered.

I am equally afraid of losing track

of where the men have gone.

The thought of being so close to other humans only to be lefi behind again is nauseating

BUT

the possibility that they might pose a threat or do me harm is downright terrifying.

From one moment to the next I don’t know which is worse.

‌Flesh and Blood

follow the voices up the trail into the neighborhood

keep to the shrubbery

move from shadow to shadow stay within earshot

at the end of my mother’s block peer around the corner

see them all huddled

in the middle of the street their backs to me

unlike the looters, these men wear matching jumpsuits, boots, and caps

they walk up the street

pause to look at burnt-out remains of houses and cars

I watch ready to run

at any moment

they stop at Mom’s ruined house one of the men walks forward shakes his head

pulls a handkerchief from his pocket blows his nose

turns and

for the first time I see his face

Her face.

My mother’s face looks out from under the cap.

Her hair is cut short and her eyes look exhausted but it’s my mother

flesh and blood.

I burst into tears

and then I am running, running and shouting down the street, shouting with my entire body and spirit.

My mother and the men turn toward me.

I see nothing but

my mother’s stunned beautiful face as I fly toward her

then

I am in her arms and

we are weeping together holding each other

rocking back and forth.

She is shorter and smaller than I remember

but her arms are familiar and strong and I dissolve into them

and then another set of arms encircles and embraces us both and I hear my father’s voice laughing and crying

repeating my name over and over.

They are here. They are alive.

They have come for me.

They have come.

‌After-Words

their voices their questions

the touch of their hands

everyone’s waiting they say

everyone’s fine

the imminent threat? it never existed

a massive land grab unprecedented fraud elections

new government

conditions returning to normal

I can’t care not yet

so many answers too many questions

there is only this

the touch of their hands skin on warm skin family skin

our skin own skin

to be held to be seen to be heard

to be known

these are the nutrients missing

from my diet

of the last three years mal-love-nourished

forgot totally what it means to be heart-quenched

soul-satiated

now it fills me feeds me

holds me stills me

with George tucked beneath my feet

and my mother and my father each holding my hands

we fly

up and over

the only home I ever had the home I forced

to feed and shelter me

up and over

the charred neighborhood the lake

the park

the town and all its buildings the houses

the schools

the ruins from flood and storm

down below

my ghost self haunts a maze of streets always searching always hunting sometimes hoping always wishing

now there is only this

they have come for me come back for me back to this home

this home that tried to kill me tried to keep me alive

they are here I am here

simultaneous impossibilities like everything

like nothing

like love