(growing Pains) 8. The Flood Poem by Janice Windle

Black, frowning canopy of cloud,
vast rolling waves clawing like lions
at Noah's robe as he, precariously
balanced on a rock, directs
salvation of terrestrial life
threatened by the swelling sea.

In assured obsessive strokes
you have drawn the Flood,
in coloured biro. Your picture
is apocalyptic. I wonder
that after your mere eleven years
of close-protected, comfortable life,
you can conceive this mayhem,
show so graphically
the struggles of the drowning
in the unrelenting waters.

Now that the floodgates have opened,
now I know you drew
your own internal world, flooded, threatened
with unspoken fears your parents never knew.