The Recklessness of Water

It was a moment wrenching naivete and youth
from my carefully constructed self.
Losing this
     loosing myself from the pillars
that held my sheltering roof.
               It fell,
as it does. As it has always done.
I felt anew the rush of water, the elements of life
against which I had chinked the cracks
and patched the leaking, sagging roof.
               I hurt.
I had forgotten what that was, and I fought
panic that rose like the Penobscot in spring,
flooding my banks.
     When the waters receded
I stood among the wreckage, among the ruins of youth.

That was the moment
when I calmly assessed the damage
and knew that something had been irrevocably lost.
     A stranger had built that house
and she had drowned, died from exposure,
a childlike architect who left no blueprint.
Losing this
     loosing myself from the crumbled pillars
that stand now only in my memory.
Elaborations of the original
will surface from the ground up.  
               I’ll build again.
There will be room for you, but no pedestal.
No longer will you prop a swaybacked roof.
You cannot suppress the reckless water
and only a child could think it so.