Carpe Diem Weekend Meditation #89: Extreme Haibun: Is It Too Much to Ask For Rain?

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“Is it too much to ask for it to rain?” I ask as I spend another summer steeped in sweat.

Yet I remember the year when the flood came, another year when I often asked: “is it too much to ask for it to rain?”

I remember the wave slamming into the side of my car, the terror as I wondered if I would be swept away into a field which had become a choppy lake.

I did not ask for it to rain for a long time after that.

when something well-loved

becomes a thing of terror

everything changes

~Cie~

Image from the Longmont Times-Call

Notes:

For those who are prone to questioning my veracity, the story related above is 100% true and I had PTSD following the incident. One of the ways in which this affected me is making me unable to write for a long time. People lost their lives during this flood, and I didn't know why I wasn't one of them. I've never done anything which I believe makes me worthy of continued survival, and yet, like toenail fungus, I persist in hanging around long past my sell-by date.

NaPoWriMo 2015: Day 13: Evil Walks In Mysterious Ways

The Triumph of Death

Painting by Pieter Bruegel

Evil Walks In Mysterious Ways

Evil works in ways that we don't always understand

It would be easier if it were obvious

A horrifying monster, for instance

A caped villain with a knife or gun

Even an armed soldier fighting for an army hell-bent on destruction

These forms of evil are easy to understand

What is impossible to truly understand or fight

Is the thought process that makes certain people want to harm others

The disaster that takes countless lives

The disease process that destroys a body's cells

Those things that leave us more terrified than any enemy we can see

Because what we cannot understand, we cannot fight

And so, we cannot win

~Ellie~

Note:

I didn't stick strictly to the prompt, which was to write a riddle poem. Instead, I pondered a topic which has no satisfactory answer: the existence of evil.

Overflow

The Cheese got into a fix

When driving to work from the sticks

Water rushed onto the road

Hitting like a full load

Of a semi truck filled brimful with bricks

~Cie~

Cross-posted to:

The Cheese Whines

Poetry of the Netherworld

Undead in the Netherworld

For those who don't know or couldn't guess, my other blogger name (besides The Real Cie) is Cie Cheesemeister, or Cheesy, the Cheese, or Cheesemeister.

The flood we experienced in the Boulder area was the result of several converging conditions resulting in rivers, creeks and streams rising and standing water becoming overwhelming in certain areas. We experienced as much rainfall in three days as we usually do in an entire year.

The cars that were in the parking garage at work were found to be crushed together in one corner, on top of each other.

If there is danger of flooding, never park in an underground garage.

When the water hit the health care facility on Wednesday night, workers had to push residents in wheel chairs across the court yard through up to three feet of water. I wasn't there on that night. I came in Thursday night, and if I had left later than I did, I might not have made it there. Judging by the wall of water that hit my car, there may have been a chance that I wouldn't have made it at all. It's a sobering thought.

The assisted living area, the lower level of health care, and part of the south wing of the independent facility will not be livable again any time in the near future. The upper level of health care is still without power.

There is a moldy smell pervading the entire south end of the building.

In the Southern end of the state, Manitou Springs is, for all intents and purposes, gone.

I got off easy.

I feel bad complaining about the degree of soreness that moving furniture around on Thursday night caused!

Here is some information on what a Hundred Year Flood is that you may find interesting.

Peace,

Cie

Opal's Fireblossom Friday

Please show unto Eternicode the Lurrrrrrve for creating these sparky Fireblossoms

The Fireblossom Challenge by Imaginary Garden with Real Toads

 

write a poem about a crack, fissure, rupture, split, or breaking point.

 

Mount Etna Erupts

 

Volcanic Eruption

by

Opal Zushaquon

 

There is beauty in the destruction

Of a volcanic eruption

As the earth cracks asunder

The magma bleeds forth from any resulting fissures

The ground ruptures

The ash in the atmosphere may cause lightning to slice through the sky

A pyroclastic cloud exploding poison and ash through the atmosphere rains death upon everything caught below

Yet observe the beauty of the fire

The magnificence of the magma flow.

 

~Opal~