Noah’s Flood

“. . . Noah’s flood is not yet subsided;
two thirds of the fair world it yet covers.”
~ Herman Melville, Moby Dick [Chapter 58]

Two-thirds of the world is watery,
calling the vagabond, the troubled,
the adventurous, the meditative,
to come to the shore and beyond,

to sail out into the deep,
the gull and albatross overhead
and beneath feet which play the deck like a drum,
teeming villages of dolphin, shark, squid,
and thousands of other species, many still unknown.

We’ve learned to love remnants
of the flood, what flows between continents
and up estuaries, waves that foam,
climb the air and fall,
the white sapphire sparkles on the surface
in moonlight or sun.

Scientists say the ice is melting,
the flood returning.
When the waters don’t recede
and whole cities sink below the crest,
you and I will play the role
of Noah’s neighbors.

~ Wilda Morris 

Originally published in Pequod Poems: Gamming with Moby-Dick by Wilda Morris (Kelsay Books, 2019).