The rising waters spill into a flood.
All who aren't holding tightly are soon lost.
Dead swept away in tobacco-colored mud --
clogged and coated as they're rolled and tossed;
crushed and carried with all other debris;
ever moving toward a wide blue sea.

But one body will never reach that sea.
Some wide river will dissipate the flood,
and banks and bends will catch all that debris.
There's more than one route to a lifetime lost.
Not everything is caught that's deluge tossed --
some stay, hidden, buried in deepest mud.

What's stuck in mud long enough becomes mud,
and nothing more than silt reaches the sea.
Though clues will be found from the houses tossed --
like jack-booted thugs - so behaves the flood.
It ensures treasures remain ever lost,
while unloved scraps stay twisted in debris.

How quickly cherished goods become debris --
just swirl them around in some dodgy mud,
and what was loved will be forever lost
as if it were trapped deep below the sea
with speed as surprising as in flashflood.
Only spared heirlooms avert being tossed.

The churning river makes me feel I'm tossed --
as if circulating in the debris.
But I am not a victim of this flood,
just one who sees the future in the mud
and one who sees the past writ in the sea,
and, seeing both, is nonetheless still lost.

To know maps doesn't mean to never be lost.
To ride floods requires being rudely tossed,
and doesn't mean you'll ever detect the sea,
nor that you'll be classed: "unloved debris."
There's always something shining in the mud --
all the more so after the crest of flood.

So, be lost without becoming debris --
a thing that's tossed but shines in the mud,
and, never seeking sea, just rides the flood.