After the Wind

In the early morning hours of June 7, 2008, many Vigo County residents awoke to raging floodwaters in their homes. Some escaped with their lives and little else. All suffered catastrophic loss. . . . —Jane E. Hunt, Tribune  Star (Terre Haute, Indiana), August 6, 2008 

God was not in the wind 
and not in the earthquake. 
God was not in the fire, 
nor in the heavy rain 
when levees breached as easily as living room walls. 

But after the flood, came one thousand 
yellow T-shirts, with two thousand 
unskilled hands. They 
raked the wreckage from our hair, 
piece by unsalvageable piece, 
carted soggy loads of memories to the curb. 
Then they tore up the floor, 
tore down the water-logged walls. 
Beside the gutted skeleton: 
an unbalanced, moldy pile of life as we knew it. 

And God was in the trash heap.