Lunch is 14 metres away and Rising

In the darkness before a new day
The cowering small towns hunker down, waiting
Fallen trees embrace the landscape
Windmills of leaves swirl and smack at windowpanes
And the clouds chest bump high above with brutal disregard for the bruises falling below
Collapsed road bases roll up like burnt crusts
Outbuildings cling to the earth, screaming tin voices in anguish as their skins peel under the hard grip of the wind
He knew this much; nothing would ever be the same
Bits of people’s lives fly past like hole punches in a pianola roll
The cold fingers of water curl around ankles, ghost hands pulling them down
Countries of memories, precious photographs and leather-bound heirlooms fighting to find higher ground
Stacking, piling high, more stacking, an elevator of loss
Fractured futile attempts, the water still rising
Past, present, and future thrown into a raging internal sea
Scattered around him was his life’s work and his heart clenched, tight and shrivelled in fear
About now, he thought, the bridges and roads will be cut
Like the moment you realise that your whole life until this point is horrifically tidal, rapidly receding, pulling your feet from under you in great surges
Pencils, paints, and crayons rush past.
Small coloured sticks making art as they swirl away or sink, colours muddied on the way down
His brother's well worn Martinez guitar swims past, water music
Desk, his mother’s 1800’s walnut bureau, gasps for breath before bobbing to the surface briefly and then like the titanic, upends
Lightening illuminates a neighbour’s house, bedraggled and huddled jersey cows coats dark with rain, fences like spiderwebs caught in trees, a small yellow lifejacket,
Pitch black again and alone
Civil engineers made roads, drew boundaries, nature casually and with little effort unravels all this precise measuring and inking
Who is going to find me in this he thinks?
Has this one moment defined the rest of every other moment to come?
Gone, lost, without, drowned, the language of heartbreak
Lunch is 14 metres and rising away, the water now chest deep.