It Was Not The Way They Said It Would Be

I see the patchwork on His stars
how He is holding us all together
in the supposed flood zones

I see how the flood doesn't come
not the way that agrees with the models

outwitting all predictions.
the rain is soothed

going as if in a dream into mist
some other way.
predictions fail.

the bold pronouncements
this and then that
the flood plains drowned

but the wind is stilled.

love remains
He remains patching the stars
they shine in us

and there is no flood
no flood at all not the epic one
they wanted to come

since it would prove 
their predictions true.
no rivers cresting

in the small and ever smaller midnights
I forsee 

overreaching their banks
swallowing us whole.
rremulous, discounted, not in the mix

 we lift the lamp of faith

above the dark caverns
and men are angry
who don't know themselves

why they fight so hard
for the floods to prevail
while the floods fail

and the patched stars shine.

mary angela douglas 15 september 2018