Falling

News thy name is mud. Tons of the stuff. Tragedy and grief for the un-evacuated after torrential rain. Mudslide in Montecito, at the rate of a one inch deluge every fifteen minutes, like a broken spigot, unstoppable, mountain-side rushing to the sea, rivers of scorched and slimy earth and ash, high-end debris, downed oak trunks, roots, overturned cars, twelve dead, make it fifteen, boulders, swamped living rooms, current of drenched soil, rescuers falling into swimming pools, man holes, upped now to seventeen.

Felled or falling also that team from the tower on 5^th Ave. He in his slipping down life, never humbled but ever bumbling, he appears to be tweeting bird-droppings with a wounded wing. Humpty-Dumpty fell off his wall. Humpty-Trump also falling into a swamp of dossiers, Papadopoulos yapping, Flynn flipping, Manafort in muck up to his ankle bracelet, mud-slinging from on high. Bannon falls from grace for running off at his mouth. Time to evacuate with an avalanche of un-fake facts, corruption, collusion, obstruction, obfuscation, indictments, truth leaking in torrents, streaming, men in suits falling, first family falling, incumbents dropping out.

Stars from Alabama falling, leading men toppling, directors, producers in high chairs and couches are falling like flies (unzipped), hierarchies, and patriarchies crumbling with a thud. 

Empires fall. The Romans fell famously with barbarians at the gate. Britain did it quietly. Communism fell in velvet. The U.S., no longer exceptional, is withdrawing stage right and falling.

Falling in love is a divine falling. Downed by Cupid’s arrow. Something seismic shifting, something yielding, Apollonian walls crashing, hormones dripping. On our knees struck but lifted, buoyant in a floating world. Waving, not drowning. Chirping not tweeting. Something singing like sycamore flushed with hues falling.