Some scenes are burned indelibly into ones brain.
It's the process the mind uses to train
Your memory so that like seeing all that rain
That poured from the skies and flooded our lane,
And the side streets it filled, and even down Main,
Seeing so much water was like going insane
Just how much those dry places could even retain
All that the clouds dropped down again and again,
And the lawn and the garden looking like an ocean plain
Water running turbulently like a river in pain--
Putting any thought of traveling under a strain,
So watching through windows, indoors, one must remain,
Seeing past streams of water sheeting over the pane.
Watching clouds form and dissolve, holding us in disdain,
And later we learned that others by Lightning were slain.
Then huge puddles were left as the ground had to abstain
From absorbing more fluids, so that what did remain
Caught the China berries and leaf debris like a seine
To hold and ferment together when the Sun shone again.
A veritable treat for flocks that never seemed to wane,
And they chowed down on the berries as the puddles began to drain,
The noise they made squabbling echoed through the window pane
And seemed to invite others to come feast in like vein.
Then hundreds of black birds staggering around, drunk--it was plain,
Because all the squawking and wing flapping they did was in vain,
Lift off impossible, jury grounded--all the birds the yard could contain.
And this is only one set of such scenes played like a refrain
From among the millions burned indelibly into my brain.
©December 22, 2014 Mary E. Adair
