one big twig

 In the valley, below the melting glacier,

Under vast mountains that stab the sky,

People, tiny as ants by comparison,

Are practicing and preparing.

Learning how to carry stretchers,

How to search the rubble of fallen houses.

Seeking out places that might be safe,

When the glacier fills the lake

So that the flood breaks.

Meanwhile, on a pimply little suburban hill,

An old man hobbles up his street,

Coming back after visiting a cash machine.

He talks to a neighbour,

Who is sweeping the leaves

Stripped and scattered

By last night’s storm.

This, they agree, blew down a plane tree

Up by the park.

They hope such would never fall on their homes.

This is nothing

Compared to the valley below the melting glacier,

But a twenty-foot plane tree

Is one big twig floating in a stream,

Before an impending flood.