Saturday, November 24, 2018

Aftermath


Frances was devastating
Leaving behind the eerie silence of death, debris, and destruction
Branches stripped bare of leaves
Few structures left standing
A child’s dirty, matted, gray, stuffed Duck
Lies upon a fallen tree trunk
Strewn over the remains of a wooden fence, deck, or boardwalk
A kaleidoscope of plastic, paper, and metal
Scattered on green grass and brown mud
That stinks of raw, rotten sewage
The only hint of former life
And human habitation
Visible in this scene reminiscent of a war zone
Floodwaters of tears swell over my heart
As I am drowned by feelings of distress and abandonment

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I began working on this Ekphrastic poem at the West Virginia Writer’s Fall 208 Conference as I responded to a visual prompt, the above photo from a magazine, in a Poetry Workshop presented by Kari Gunter-Symour.

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