A Small Research

[qimissung]

When you go out into
the rainstorm
and all you can see for miles
are the tops of roofs
and debris floating by
and the incessant rain
dimpling the gray surface
do you feel the need to ask God,
or anybody floating by,
why, why, why, am I drowning
or do you simply drift away
or do you gulp and gasp and
thrash like a caught fish?

Qimissung
September 2013

[cacian]

hi qimi I like this piece. I suddenly had that vision of the flood and noah's ark for some reason
I find it interesting in that the contrast of the poem is between someone drowning and a fish caught.
again the word God intensify the vision about noah and the flood. was that your intention?

[qimissung]

Thank you, cacian. It's not about Noah, although I can see why that image would pop into one's mind. There are two questions underlying this piece: First, how do you (the universal you) respond to life's random events, and second, how do you save yourself?

[AuntShecky]

I'd reverse the order of the questions,dear q. Survival first, the philosophical questions later. Thank you for remembering the poor people of Boulder Colorado in this week of multiple wretched occurences.

[virtuoso]

Metaphorically speaking, a nice, philosophic query that you have posed. The rain can symbolically cleanse or drown. Also, the elements can be cyclical, natural dispatches or divine portents. I enjoyed your poem.

[Haunted]

You captured it so well Qim. A disaster poem, yet so gentle, varying from questioning to a tone of acceptance perhaps. I found these lines quite powerful:

do you feel the need to ask God,
or anybody floating by,
why, why, why, am I drowning

[qimissung]

Thanks, Aunty. I agree that ending with a philosophical question can be powerful. leaving us with infinite possibilities to consider, but in this instance I wanted to end this with the more dramatic image of a person who is floundering or self-destructive or suicidal.

Virtuoso, thank you for reading; you divined the ideas that I was striving for with the metaphor.

Hey, Haunted. Yes, a kind of Job like construction: how would we react to the blind, striking hand of the universe? Thanks for stopping by.