We avoided
The runaway rains
Which poured down hills
Over sidewalks

Collecting in pools
Below houses
Where foundations sank
Underground,

As their deluge drowned
Every remnant
Those cellars hid
Beneath footsteps

Of lives long past
Getting muddied
And swallowing tears
God had shed –

Like ships on land
Overturned
When artifacts lost
Become relics,

Knowing basements hold
Filling memories
With waters
Darkened from sin.

Our legacies
Will never preserve
What nature’s wrath
Has deemed frivolous –

Random objects
Strewn among puddles,
Now sentimental junk
Gone to waste.

I can’t escape
Being submerged,
Only knowing
How time sinks slowly,

Always learning
Escape is impossible
While watching
My past out at sea.

So belief
Through disastrous fate
Means uncovering clocks
Found broken –

Behind glass
Hope completely shattered,
Stopped for good
After surges subside.

• J. Pigno