In the Sky With Diamonds

    “And the rains came.” A lyric from an old song. Maybe not a lyric, more like a tellers recollection of events. It reminds me of that day in June it began to storm. 

    The weather prediction was for rain, some heavy, hit and miss. The nebulous predictions that we are exposed to daily. We let them pass without comment as their assurance is never absolute, as they can’t be, the weather being the unpredictable entity that it is. 

    That particular day it began to rain in the late morning. Light, intermittent at first, then increasing. The skies grew an ominous bruised black, interrupted by slashes of lighting and rolling thunder. The smell of ozone permeated the heavy air.

    At times it rained so hard I couldn’t see more than a few yards. I had been in situations like that before, mainly in the south, Louisiana, Mississippi, where you can at times walk on the humidity.

    We lived in a valley susceptible to flooding. Periodically the rising water would overflow the banks, but by the following day would recede to the main channel. Fences would have been damaged, some erosion would have occurred, but for the most part things returned to normal, another memory quickly forgotten.

    That day I watched the creek leave its banks, the line fence break, and the water turn a muddy brown. The sky remained a slate gray as the steady drumbeat of rain pounded the metal roof of the barn.

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    So many of the predictions about climate change are relayed in the context of time, mostly the moments remaining before we’ve reached the path of no return. Charts, graphs, predictions, because they are pictures painted of the future allows todays, to become removed from the inevitability if action is not taken. Percentages do not relate to the reality of the present and are taken as more of a suggestion than a command. We basically prefer to push the inevitable a little further down the road in hopes the conjecture, will become just that, conjecture.

    The prominence of climate change has recently been replaced by the news of war in Ukraine. The damage and relocation fills the television screens daily, as do stories of death and the inhumanity that accompanies war.

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    The rain had been coming down at a steady rate for over twelve hours. The creek that runs into the river has swelled beyond memories experience. The river too has risen, and now forms a dam preventing the creek from following its course. The once small stream that could be jumped has turned into a body of water resembling a lake. It is inching its way towards our home which stands only a few feet in elevation above the creeks normal level.

     The power has shut down as the rain has continued now for over twenty-four hours. We have considered leaving as the water nears. I walked the road to the north, it climbs the valley wall rising above the creek below. A quarter of a mile from the house the road bank had collapsed preventing passage. To the south the river has crossed the road preventing any escape. I watch as the water continues to seek an escape route. We decide to leave and go across the road to a neighbor’s house that sits higher on the hill. They invite us in, “stay until the waters recede.”

    We sit in our neighbors upstairs window watching as the water attempts to cover the valley floor, our barn, our home. 

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    I can’t help but think of those now being displaced by war; losing everything, having to move to foreign territory void of friends, family, and the reassurance bestowed by familiarity. 

    Until the reality of weather or war intrude on our docile acceptance of daily life, we excuse the interruptions to others as we excuse the normalcy we have come to expect each day in our own lives. It isn’t until the water is licking at our boots, or the bombs are falling from the sky, that we begin to pay attention, and by then it is too late.

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    The rain has begun its second day of assault. The water approaches the doors to the barn, the yard of our home is now hidden by flood waters. It is the afternoon on the second day and the sky remains dark, being awakened from its monotonous stance occasionally by shrieks of lightning and growling thunder. The mote surrounding our home reflecting the war in the sky.

    The end of the second day, the sky dissolves to a sad gray. The western heaven growing brighter as the storm moves on. That evening the power is restored; lights blinking to life, the radio blaring; once again alive. The words climb from the speakers informing us that John Lennon had been shot, died. Judy’s diamonds in the sky breaking from the blanket that has entombed us for several days, splashing the sky with memories of a life now gone.

    During the night the waters recede, we return home. The house has escaped the rampage. A few days pass and everything becomes a blurred memory of what was and what is. We fall back into the mundane repetition of life, preferring to forget about the disruption, it is easier than remembering. 

    The grass is left with a film of mud, the stream water runs brown, the fence a tangled mass of wire and posts, left as though a medieval sculpture to remind us of an uncontrollable presence that surrounds us daily. 

    The war goes on even though the memories of that time have weakened. Have I learned anything, have we learned anything? I would doubt that we accept the probability that war may come to us, and yet ignoring the possibility will leave a vulnerability that we will regret. 

    The war we have waged against the environment over the past decades, will one day affect us all. We will be forced to pay attention to its power, but unlike war we will not have the ability to stop its revolution. There will not be a neighbor’s house to retreat to. The waters will not recede. The skies will remain the collective madness of past mistakes that will not be mistaken for diamonds in the sky. We will once again be earths migrants, with only our thoughts of borrowed time to comfort us.