Unrest On the Floodplain
The rain commenced in darkness, flung upon
These acres as the heavens thumped and crashed.
I scarcely slept and got up to no sun.
In gray light I went out; my footsteps splashed.
The creek close to the house, not far below,
Raced by me muddy, thick with clots of drift,
Already rising up its banks to show
Power to shove aside, make way, and lift.
Beyond lay floodplain, weedy, tangled thick
With vines and sticks where bright birds screeched before,
But now I heard the water moving quick
In currents, swelling louder to a roar.
The day aged gray and comfortless, with rain
Just thinly sprinkling as the creek swirled past.
Then in that evening more storms hit the plain
And thunder burst again in blast on blast.
Another heavy dawn came on me late;
What floated in my sight I hardly knew.
Beyond the fringe of shrubs a driving fate
Had drowned the low ground wholly out of view.
The creek had now dilated to a lake,
A spreading shine and shimmer on the plain.
The still-arriving flow surged on to take
More territory in the new domain.
Out there forlorn seed-stalks of grass remained,
Absurd, awash, along with scraggly trees;
But long green grass was sunken and profaned
While on the water crawled a feeble breeze.
Now I was one to moralize and guess
At purposes and principles and themes,
And what I saw was witless wilderness
Whose wreckage seemed a specter out of dreams.
Of what was picturesque I saw no trace.
Throughout the plain, besmirching flood had run
Indifferently to alter and deface.
And what of creatures then? I saw not one.
The rain had ceased; the packed clouds broke askew;
But nowhere in that inundated scene
Could sunlight elevate my thoughts anew.
Old life would fail; no wish could intervene.
A while I brooded on the floodplain’s brim,
Awaiting some improbable relief.
Sunlight I had, but still my mood stayed dim.
I sighed in puzzlement and pointless grief.
After another night, I wandered out
Again on foot, my purpose then to find
The merest signal to be glad about
Or nearest charm to fascinate my mind.
A shock—the creek had ceased to roar, was back
Within its banks to ripple harmlessly.
I paused there, disconcerted by the lack
Of drama, chaos, and calamity.
And then beyond the shrubbery I saw
Prodigious alterations in my view
That moved me to exclaim, frankly in awe,
At one scene gone, another gleaming new.
The flood, a phantom, had dissolved and sped
At night down through the overburdened creek.
I marveled at what shone out there instead—
A vision of a kind I meant to seek.
All standing stark, the shrubs and shaken trees
Took on a semblance of antiquity
Restored in part, and then a simple breeze
Rose up and carried freshness straight to me.
Driftwood had dropped with dead grass clumped and wet,
But over that, incongruous, there stood
A scattering of green grass living yet,
Now waving unrestricted as it should.
Green life I saw renewed when the flood was gone,
But the flood in draining off had drained from me
Much of the notion that I could hold on
To changing forms in perpetuity.
With calmer breath I heard the click and buzz
Of creatures undistressed, of roaming bees
Gone out on daily business. So it was,
While bright birds skittered through the scraggly trees.
And will the deluge come again this year?
Oh, let that go, there’s present work for me.
What can I do but act with virtue here?
Result will follow act—so must it be.
How delicate does life’s fair promise seem,
And laughter, joy—how lightly do they pass.
With patience now let me take as my theme
The ever-fading, ever-rising grass.
Bhikkhu Nyanasobhano is a native of Kentucky who for many years has been a bhikkhu, a Buddhist monk of the Theravāda tradition.
