Free Three Rivers Rising by Jame Richards

branches crack
and bow
beneath my weight.
Heart slows its pounding.
Must look plenty silly,
a respectable woman,
a trained nurse,
squatting in a tree.
Almost laugh.
Almost.
    Straighten my collar
and smooth my shirtwaist.
Plan my excuses to the other passengers.
    Feet
slippery with silty mud
search out a lower branch.
    Just then, a train whistle,
tied down,
wails
from up the line
in the direction of that old dam.
    Thunder falls toward us
from high up the mountain pass.
Breath and screams
leave the lungs
all at once.
Fingernails dig into the tree
and my face buries itself
in the wet trunk.
    It’s coming.
The water is on its way
and I am already drowning.
    Maura
    3:39 p.m .
At first I think the long whistle is just for me,
a love song.
I smile to myself,
hands to hot cheeks.
    But it doesn’t end,
getting closer
too quickly,
and still it doesn’t end.
    My skin prickles
all over
remembering Joseph’s stories
of the screaming fairies
who shriek in the dooryard
right before someone inside dies.
    Their sound couldn’t be
more horrible than this.
    So loud now
I wonder if he is bringing the train
right for us
off the tracks
cutting through fields of mud.
    I gather the children
into my skirts
to hide them from the blare,
to hide them from the banshee.

    3:40 p.m .
The children’s whimpers
are lost in the shrill whistle,
but I can see their lips curl,
their eyes pleading.
    My life has been about saving things:
the pinch of sugar
that becomes the birthday cake;
the scraps of cloth
that become the quilt to warm our sleep
or the rug to cushion our feet;
the bird baby that falls from its cozy nest in the eaves,
soft as fog where its feathers should be.
I feed it with a wet rag.
Even the stitching I make with my needles,
each knot more secure than the last,
holding my love tightly
in its woolen grip,
each stitch
a moment of my time,
a breath of my life,
to create a fabric
my loved ones
will remember me by …
    But the stitches are slipping
and I feel row after row
ripping
unpopping
faster
faster
unfastening
at last
unraveling.
    I imagine
the dam crumbling,
the lake bursting,
and floodwater rising around us,
destroying all the good we’ve made.
    But this awful noise has come to warn us,
perhaps to say this flood will not be the gradual
seeping tide we all expected,
but perhaps something more like a crashing wave.
It suddenly dawns so clear,
the terrible power of moving water
and the need to run for the hillside
in peril for our lives.
    And this is the moment
that will live inside me
all my life,
maybe for eternity:
I can’t save it—
my house,
my geraniums,
my handiwork—
and I can’t stay
for the love of it.
My children must live
and I must live
for them.
    Kate
    3:40 p.m .
Eyes closed,
waiting for it to be over,
don’t want to think of the other train passengers:
man with a cane,
foolish women with frilly hats,
bored children,
not to mention the townspeople …
so many people …
and they’re going to need help
getting to higher ground.
    Force air into the lungs.
Knees shimmy down the tree.
Fears be damned!

    3:42 p.m .
Didn’t think much could surprise me in life
anymore,
but when I’m old and gray
on my deathbed
and I close my eyes the last time,
I will still see this sight:
an entire town
at my feet
disappears.
    Maura
    3:42 p.m .
Leaving takes me over.
    I lift the tiny baby from the cradle
and tie him to my chest with a shawl.
He sleeps undisturbed.
    I tie up my skirts,
preparing to run,
and replace a loose hairpin with shaking fingers,
still knotting
until the last.
    One final look
at all I swept
and cleaned
and created—
the daily doings,
sweat and toil
of a humble country girl,
one like any other—
it pales
and blurs
before my eyes.
It is nothing now.
    One baby strapped to my belly,
another on each hip,
and the oldest clinging to my skirt,
I leave it all behind,
not bothering to shut the door,
a silent offering
to the invader that is surely on its way:
Take it all ,
just not these babies .
We cross the street
against the