*
It's flooding in Guerneville and Monte Rio
and the lights flicker
because a hundred year old oak
finally couldn't take it anymore
and took seventy-thousand volts
to the wet earth and sighed deeply
like it was going down for the full count

Lights went out.


* *
It is flooding in the Laguna
where the summer lettuce farms
grow green, the corn tall,
the cabbage red and plump,
and in the rain on the highway
one can't see ten feet ahead,
yet there’s a fool
passing doing sixty,
going home late
to get a warm shower
and watch the TV pictures
of the river rising and go to sleep
without realizing that hell
could open up any moment
and swallow him
and belch him out
at the mouth of the Russian River,
dead and torn apart
like a poor old possum..