Flood warning

Flood Warning

The sky folds over the river‑bend, clouds like a tired violin, and in the hush of a damp morning the siren crackles—a low, deep long‑howl.

Its warning is not a song but a summons, a pulse in the arteries of every town, an urgent piece of paper slipped from the hand of a civil‑defence officer, red flags hanging on the telephone‑pole.

Homes stand silent, the shutters on the windows cross‑armed like row‑eased guardians. A green‑flag left a whisper‑matter of the tide, but the river’s pulse has grown from a murmur into a roar that seeks to break the damp broad‑sword of brick.

The streets spill into creeks, the footpath to a stream, and the little children with their rattle‑tin boats remember the last flood when the fields wore water as a second skin. The map walls—once clear—now show a swirled sea of numbers Light at the edge, “Mid‑morning, high water,” the alert states.

So we gather, not by courage but by necessity: taking the nearest ditch, the kitchen dresser, the glass tube, we climb the walls, we watch the water’s quick‑shifting line. A siren swells and flares the emergency signal, remembering that a flood clears streets as the Earth exhales exhaling rain from the sky.

We know the old ways: the brass plaque under the old pier carries a name—Levee — a word of protection, and the black‑painted stakes have never betrayed. We sit in the comfort of late, all hands on the water‑level rounds, leaving a piece of the sky behind.

The flood warning—one line on the town’s bulletin board— pins us in stillness, reminding every living mind that the waters run and swallow, and that the national nursing scheme can steady the fold. Thus we learn: we are the boats, the coast‑line, the water, the boundary drawn with a silent brace.