The road shimmered,
washed clean by the morning,
as we walked.
Her steps, steady but worn,
carried the weight of a year
drenched in sorrow.
The river had come like a thief,
its hands wide and unforgiving.
It took the dogs, a business,
the home,
the work of a thousand days,
and left her standing
in the brittle silence
of an emptied life.
Grief surged behind her eyes—
a tide that rose and fell,
never quite receding.
But she walked on,
through the rubble of weeks,
through the shifting sands of months,
holding her daughter as if the world
depended on her smile.
Papers piled high,
forms with no mercy,
the language of insurance
a foreign, gray fog.
Every phone call a new wound.
Every night a ledger of survival.
But today,
the air felt softer,
as if the earth
had finally exhaled.
The flood, relentless and cold,
had washed something loose.
The fears she carried for years—
hidden beneath the surface
like sharp stones—
had worn smooth in its wake.
She did not speak of triumph.
There was no banner of joy.
But the lightness in her step
was a hymn,
and the wind that wove
through the trees sang,
just quietly enough,
that something in her
had been saved.
© R Gordon Zyne