Floods of wrath, Tigris to my Ur!

                Trenchantly breaking relations

                —Temples of Toil— made by me!

                From the sweat of my brows, they’re built

                Oh, why do your rip tides rip them?

                I know why, why Mind of mine,

                Mind: The one plunderer of thoughts!

               

                Thoughts race, le déluge de l'année

                I speak the tongue of spoiled hate.

                Invective knives, acid rain,

                Shy away settled folk of Ur

                They dissolve the friendship huts

                The ones friends and I lived under

 

                In the darkened sterile soil

                Tammuz lays down a few white seeds

                The floods now bring wholesome silt

                The fertile soil warms.

 

                Once an augur of destruction,

                My thoughts, river of wrath, Oh, God,

                Dam it now! Make it slow now… please.

               

                The  river, rapid thoughts, subside.

                They become a stagnant pool of rot.

                My thoughts are as still as statues.

                All the fish float up. Dead, that is.

                Maybe I should float too.

 

                It seems all is lost.

                I think I’ll give up.

                I might as well just die.

               

 

                Some kind folk came by by surprise;

                They fixed my river’s dam just right

                Neither flood nor rot are my thoughts.

 

                They didn’t use glue or machines

                They didn’t bring solder or any such thing

                They built it with pills and kinds words –

                Therapy – Those are what made me me

 

                Ur rejoices in the river’s change

                The folk love the words water brings

                The City of Ur—The City of Faith

                I rejoice in the music they make

               

                They’re raucous, they joke, they show love.

                The seeds grow from such fodder, the arts, and new water

                At last, the plants are now grown.

 

                They combined into one;

                It stands tall,

                Hair in a bun,

                It has two arms, two legs, and a face.

 

                She says “I love you” and “I love you, too.”

                She tends anachronistic canines and chives.

                She cares for the ill

                She’s an impassioned young soul.

                She studies all day

                She protests for change

                She loves to the depths of her soul.

 

                When the flood comes again,

                She’ll never bend to the will of the current of wrath.

                She’ll fight with bare hands to stop its advance;

                She’ll protect all of Faith while she stands

 

               She’ll fix all the huts,

                Make them brick,

                Get them shut.

                The acid won’t shatter them now.

 

                She’ll wrestle those thoughts, Great Bull of Inanna,

                Thank God, she isn’t Enkidu!

                She learned to patch up the dam.

                She’ll save Faith again and again.

                She loves with no limits

                She is happy.

 

               The flood of Bipolar:

                King of Rage

                King of Rot

                King of Joy

                King Antithesis

 

                She  conquered the King and made herself Queen

                Yet she still has no name, what now?

                “I’m Faith!  Who are you?” I asked her. “Are you Faith too?”

                “I’m Faith, too! Then There’s a pair of us!”

                And so she left Dickinson there

                She's not Nobody but Faith Robinson Fair.

 

 

*le déluge de l'année = the flood of the year