Inundation

Embrace three feet of snow. Follow with brilliant, clear skies. Notice that it is not that cold. See charming gigantic icicles, dripping. Watch little stream begin to freshen. See clear stream begin to muddy. Find cistern overflowing. Hear a dull "white noise" sort of sound coming from the now numerous rivulets of water. Recognize that puddles are turning to miniature lakes. Realize that there may be flooding in the rivers. Run to get day pack, scrap all plans, other than surveying the now once in 15 year water levels. Jump in car to see largest waterfalls in Baltimore and Harford County. Drive to every decent bridge, as the roaring of waters fuels the pulse. Start to encounter other maddened flood chasers, words tumbling out of their mouths, sputtering epithets and crude uses of the language now not only acceptable, but imperative, descriptions only misappropriated by the urgency of the need to capture, to fix in the mind what can't really be fixed, all is feeling and adrenaline, in the roar of waters and the knowledge that all too soon this too shall pass, like a life cut short, a knife dulled, the frayed edge of the Alz-affected, trying to fix what cannot be solidified, yearning for a way to make it stay, grasping for meaning, yearning for a way to make it part of my soul, to put another totem on the pole, interpreting the life that cannot be lived, the memory that cannot be retained, to find a reliable fixed point knowing all too well there is no fixity, there is no capturing the smoke of desire or the fecundity of water-soaked earth.