Rising Tides Poem by Suzanne Hayasaki

The Queen Bee's black hat
Bobs like a baton
Marking triggerman time
As a murdered man asks
Discomfiting questions
Like a jester in a kangaroo court.

Dark-skinned women in mermaid hair
Stare out at us through ebony eyes
Reminding us of their dual beauty
Marine and regal in their power
To seduce, to heal, to reveal
That which we would not see.

A boy hooded in black dances
Entrancing all into a state of peace
Calling on the power within him
To redeem the souls of the unclean.

Together a ghost from the past
A priestess of the present
And a spirit of the future
Appear before us
With a warning:

The flood is coming.
Cling to your weapons and your armor
And you will sink with their weight.
Or strip down to the skin of your original innocence
And float on Noah's hope for a new beginning.