Hurricane Christmas

 

 

Black Mountain is bustling.
Tourists are back, Christmas shopping,
peering in shop windows.
But I'm going beyond the lights and tinsel,
just a few blocks,
to my sacred ground, the Friends Meeting House.
It's not long ago, three months,
our little Swannanoa tore through here,
along with the waters of little Flat Creek,
all of it raging, raging.
Dug out the earth right up to the back door,
decimated the Korean church,
and the group home is a pile of rubble.
It had rained for three days, before the storm,
water, water, picking up more and more,
lifting water up from the Gulf of Mexico,
swirling it into a rage of wind and rain.
The birds flitter about,
and I know the heron will come through here soon.
The meditation rock is carried off somewhere.
My sanctuary, my retreat, my place of prayer,
my hallowed ground,
place of music, laughter and praise.
All gone, all gone.

 Annelinde Metzner

Black Mountain, December 24, 2024

 

Many of my poems in the past three months have arisen from the disaster we've experienced here in Appalachia, Hurricane Helene.  The help and spirit we've received from all over the country have been incredible, but I couldn't help but make a reality check this morning, Christmas Eve.