when a weather rock meets a magic eight ball

Clairvoyance

If the rock is wet

                .....outlook not so good.

If the rock is swinging

                .....outlook not so good.

If the rock casts a shadow

                .....outlook not so good.

If the rock does not cast a shadow and is not wet

                .....outlook not so good.

If the rock is not visible

                .....outlook not so good.

If the rock is white

                .....outlook not so good.

If the rock is coated with ice

                .....outlook not so good.

If the ice is thick

                .....outlook not so good.

If the rock is bouncing

                .....outlook not so good.

If the rock is under water

                .....outlook not so good.

If the rock is warm

                .....outlook not so good.

If the rock is wet and swinging violently

                .....outlook not so good.

If the rock has white splats on it

                .....outlook not so good.

If the rock is missing

                .....outlook not so good.

[we] hardly see light and dark anymore

A Natural Disaster

Lydia Davis

In our home here by the rising sea we will not last much longer. The cold and the damp will certainly get us in the end, because it is no longer possible to leave: the cold has cracked open the only road away from here, the sea has risen and filled the cracks down by the marsh where it is low, has sunk and left salt crystals lining the cracks, has risen again higher and made the road impassable.

The sea washes up through the pipes into our basins, and our drinking water is brackish. Mollusks have appeared in our front yard and our garden and we can’t walk without crushing their shells at every step. At every high tide the sea covers our land, leaving pools, when it ebbs, among our rosebushes and in the furrows of our rye field. Our seeds have been washed away; the crows have eaten what few were left.

Now we have moved into the upper rooms of the house and stand at the window watching the fish flash through the branches of our peach tree. An eel looks out from below our wheelbarrow.

            What we wash and hang out the upstairs window to dry freezes: our shirts and pants make strange writhing shapes on the line. What we wear is always damp now, and the salt rubs against our skin until we are red and sore. Much of the day, now, we stay in bed under heavy, sour blankets; the wooden walls are wet through; the sea enters the cracks at the windowsills and trickles down to the floor. Three of us have died of pneumonia and bronchitis at different hours of the morning before daybreak. There are three left, and we are all weak, can’t sleep but lightly, can’t think but with confusion, don’t speak, and hardly see light and dark anymore, only dimness and shadow.

flood blues

 

 

the sketch for the wall installation:

preparing for the flood

 

Nestled in the hills

of western Maryland

along a busy

Interstate 68,

a modern-day

Noah's Ark is being

built as a sign to the

world of God's love

and the soon

return of Jesus.

This undertaking

is drawing the

attention of people

from all corners

of the world.

-God's Ark of Safety Ministry website

 

*I argue that this is a great, if obvious, metaphor for sea level change and the fear surrounding it - as a sign of people looking for a symbolic rescue.

Also from the God's Ark of Safety Ministry website:

Is there another flood coming and will this Ark float? 

         In Genesis 9, God made a promise with Noah that He would never destroy the earth by water again.  This Ark is not being built to float or because of another flood, but as a sign of God’s love and Jesus’ soon return.

 

 

I saw this on the way back to Baltimore from Chicago a week ago, and (possibly) as a piece I need to go back here and take some photos of this thing - only part of the super-structure is built, so it looks like the photo above.