New Market

This is karst country New Market is a mountaintop She sits on a limestone hill And sloping down to a sudden drop We come to Middle Quarters still As water in the bulrush On the wide chest of a broad Black River Climb the hill again with me And sit on a table of memory. *** It was the time when May rains came Unabated in slow drizzle night and day The way it had for years before, same It would again, anew to this very day But when May turned to June that year The water rose from earth's deep core Made itself a lake on the flat hilltop there And swell and swell like never before. First it rose to a man's knee, and goats And all cattle were moved to higher place And then up the waist, and only boats Were able to sit upon the water's face And move the people from their homes Ancient buildings from the colonial past Soon covered, for only wind then roams The wet desert of fear, the lake filled fast. Then the news was spread abroad, alarm Struck dread on man's rugged confidence And experts and scientists did there swarm Without explanation, just dread evidence Of a mystery, a whole community burried In a week's calamity, and still there stood High waters, piled skywards, and unhurried To unveil a cause any could learn or understood The water on the hill did not flow down, wet And deep it covered the town, and dark And brooding, more waters than any rain let The trees withered, and silent each lark The omen in all sermons soon was told Many trembled searching for their hidden sins Others dug memory for curses of old And I was empty, learning no fable then spins. We are desolate without the wisdom of God Still, for New Market is not explained to today Nor where did the water go in the rocky sod People returned, build again, time fades things away The town returned after almost a year, and life Went on as before. But I cannot forget, and still Long to know. Myths and fables are rife But nothing holds, I am sodden with horror still.