Foggy Dawn on Clear Lake

Foggy Dawn on Clear Lake

Months after Ike
cold air descends at night
onto the warm, still water.
Lakeshore homes become faint shadows
wrapped in a silver-tinted blanket of cozy humidity.
Silent, calm, ominous
remnants of past destruction
hide beneath the surface.
Sea birds echo the fear
that possible repeats approach with time.
Tossed from anchored slips,
recovered boats line the shore.
Slimy green brown growth covers shattered hulls,
a graveyard of tattered dreams and sails
headed for a dumpster.

Beams of sunrise break through the fog.
People stir from trailers parked in driveways
waiting dollars from insurance, FEMA.
With hopeful eyes and hearts
they stare at their blue-tarped empty shells,
pray that this is the day
they hang sheetrock, lay tile, glimpse the time
they can once again
call this house home.