Three days after the waters receded,
everything was the brown of churned up creek.
Houses had shifted off their foundations, 
some completely washed away, mud slick everywhere I looked,
and I was walking through the holler,
my old home, in clean jeans and dry work boots. 

I found him on his porch, his woman at his side,
in wet socks after he’d been shoveling sand
out of their house since the sun had come up. 
She offered me her chair, and I knew better
than to turn down the hospitality of an Eastern Kentucky woman.
Her raising would shine, even if everything she owned 
had floated away in the rising water
or was gathered, soggy, about her.

He told me how they’d waded, waist deep,
through their garden, prize tomatoes still on the vine,
’til they hit dry ground and then climbed higher. 

I had no words, just shook my head,
elbows on my knees, praying as I listened, 
and looked at those wet socks.
There ain’t no point in putting on dry socks
when everything around you is wet. 

When someone stopped by asking if they needed anything, 
he shook his weary head, but then raised his hardened hand to stop them,
“If you could find some light bread, I’d be mighty grateful,” he said. 

I curled my dry toes in dry socks and hoped
that if ever I lost everything but my family
that I’d be mighty grateful for wet socks and light bread.