There were days
when life came
like water in a swollen river.
Breaking her banks
and flooding out the valley.
Cold and unrelenting
in her abundance,
reminding us
that we are never ready
or prepared
for all that life can bring.
Then, there were the desert days.
Long months, and years
of nothing in us.
No spark, no welling up of virility,
just dry, dusty streets,
filled with others,
who like us, were seeking signs
of life.
We survived both of these.
Extremes to set the boundaries
of our existence.
Feast and famine
in the wide valley
of our experience.
The floods made the soil rich.
The drought made some things stronger.
We have woken up
alive
despite the world’s best attempts
to dislodge us.
Destroy us.
We have learned, painfully
the ways of the flood plain.
We have become
the long grasses,
and the fruit trees,
and the grape vines.
We breathe the air,
but it is by the river and the rain
that we survive.
From shoots of green,
poking out of the mud,
to a hollow tree,
standing in a parched field.
This is us.
We are
the People of The Valley.
DJR – 2023
