The wave: prompt

A Slow Rise of Unacceptable

Finding the shore

It was a slow flood, the kind from gentle snow-melting over warm days when spring whispers

Not a rush or a wave or a tsunami, no eddies or whirlpools

It came unnoticed until I was chin-deep and dog-paddled to survive

I didn’t see the crawling rise of unhappiness, it was acceptably normal

Until it wasn’t, until my breath was water-logged, until I couldn’t breathe at all

Then, I saw it, was surrounded by the relentless tidal grief for what lay beneath the surface

What I remembered that I’d forgotten — what used to be me before the slow swell

No wave to ride to shore, to a new life, no stream to carry me effortlessly away

The only way out was in, churning the stillness around me, creating momentum

To escape the accepted unacceptable, stroking, paddling, floating, churning and wading

The flood did not subside, wasn’t soaked into the earth, didn’t evaporate in the sun

I powered through, sometimes with determination, sometimes barely staying afloat

Until my feet touched sand and a steady shore, until I could stand alone

The flood didn’t disappear I saw its unendingness behind me a memory of what can happen

When there’s a slow rise of unacceptable

© Dennett 2020

This poem is about my personal life experience but also has echoes of the four years that the United States has suffered through the Trump administration, watching what was once wholely and righteously unacceptable become the norm. Four years of a slow flood. Four years of swimming for our lives. And, it’s not over. It’s far from over. We see the shore but aren’t standing on it.

With gratitude to Jean Carfantan for his inspirational prompts: