I keep writing about this flood, because the flood’s marked our summer: before and after. I’ve written that our house was spared (thank goodness, thank goodness), but the pieces are all around us. Immediately post-flood, such an outpouring of generosity, and then, the predictable, the wearing down, the exhaustion, a growing sense of uncertainty. Rain falls and falls. We can no longer ignore that the summer has been wet and cold. And yet, how selfish it feels to complain, when we are in the Shire of Vermont.
My own saga unfurls publicly in the wake the flood. The property my ex-husband owns is posted for a tax sale; it’s been six years since he paid more than pennies on this bill, sovereign citizen that he is. My name is posted in the tax sale, that the Court removed my name from the deed in our divorce. I’m drawn into his life again, the facts of my life bantered about with people I know and those, I’m sure, I’ve never met.
The property is valuable — 92 acres with a large sugarbush. In the midst of this, someone I know from long ago phones me. The morning is dark, and I haven’t turned on any lights. His words are so kind it’s like sunlight in this gloomy summer. There’s no resolution here, no possible decent outcome. I will likely never speak to my former spouse again. I’ll never own this property. And yet, my life will hopefully go on and on, for decades yet. For these timeless moments, I drink in that unbidden kindness, let it fill me. I feel it within me, the possibility of how my life might turn.
And, because it’s August, one of my favorite Hayden Carruth poems, August First.
Late night on the porch, thinking
of old poems… The sky
is hot dark summer, neither
moon nor stars, air unstirring,
darkness complete; and the brook
sounds low, a discourse fumbling
among obstinate stones….
I wonder what became of
purity. The world is a
complex fatigue.
Stony Soil Vermont 
A complex fatigue just about sums it up. Fine post.
Thank you!
Hmm, letting all of your personal story words settle into a narrative of your life and the poet’s
words too. Both are poignant and helpful in this changing landscape we
call life. Thank you.
I am sorry you are going through all this, but your writing was beautiful.
So sorry for your trouble. The poem is beautiful.
Gwen.
Brett, reading your flood pages reminds me of my own experience during the Great Nashville Flood. I am also reminded that floods are mentioned in some of the most ancient poems. For instance, the Sumerian poet Enheduanna is the first poet we know by name, and the first poet we have an image of. She wrote the first anti-war poem around 4,500 years ahead of its time and compared War to a flood drenching mountains in blood and overspilling the valleys below. This is my translation of the poem in question…
Lament to the Spirit of War
by Enheduanna
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
You hack down everything you see, War God!
Rising on fearsome wings
you rush to destroy our land:
raging like thunderstorms,
howling like hurricanes,
screaming like tempests,
thundering, raging, ranting, drumming,
whiplashing whirlwinds!
Men falter at your approaching footsteps.
Tortured dirges scream on your lyre of despair.
Like a fiery Salamander you poison the land:
growling over the earth like thunder,
vegetation collapsing before you,
blood gushing down mountainsides,
flooding the valleys below.
Spirit of hatred, greed and vengeance!
Dominatrix of heaven and earth!
Your ferocious fire consumes our land.
Whipping your stallion
with furious commands,
you impose our fates.
You triumph over all human rites and prayers.
Who can explain your tirade,
why you carry on so?
Hugs to you from us here in Texas.
Playing catch-up reading your posts of the past few months. Now the leaves are turning in CT so they must be further along where you are or almost gone. So sorry for the hardship summer and hope that damn sign is gone by now. Amazing how our histories can creep up on us like that. But there you are with your girls – weathered so many storms and those cracks are full of gold. Hugs.
Always so nice to hear from you. Strangely, some trees are still in full glory, while most of the hillsides are gray. Sending good autumn thoughts your way.