High Tide

The headless-chicken heralds of catastrophe
Identical grotesque in lockstep one and all
Trot to and fro and threaten to spill blood on me
But I am only waiting for the rain to fall

They bear bird flu wage war and rule the fool by fear
As polar ice caps melt to make the oceans rise
The hurricanes will be the biggest yet this year
But I am only haunted by black velvet eyes

The ocean here is just eleven miles away
And when we meet on Cleveland Street the sea will be
Ascending on a daily basis steadily
Up from the west until this is our beach someday

As hand in hand along the strand of our front yard
We scry the tips of towers sticking from the sea
And see what washes up our curiosity
Will question why our elders took it all so hard

Our house was built for floods and we are up the hill
Upslope from crooked lawyers and their mortgage schemes
The tide will wash them clean but we will be here still
To laugh last and laugh best that we held to our dreams

+Steven Curtis Lance



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