After the Fire

 

After the Fire

(“After the earthquake, there was a fire. But the Lord was not in the fire. After the fire, there was a quiet, gentle voice.” 1 Kings 19:12)

I am weary of the quiet with no faces to watch,
though I open the windows and close all the screens.
All I see are the birds flying between my house and the trees.

My mind traverses back to sunny days
on be-cattled hills. Two or three friends,
a guitar and a song, silly stories and
the sky filling our faces.

I coveted the fire. I had heard the stories;
people hiding behind the piano in the corner of the church
just waiting for the flames of God
to ignite them like rocket engines.
I only experienced jet lag.

I begged for the wind. I had heard the tales;
people unexpectedly flying above the earth
with divine wind in their sails. Sometimes they
did not alight for days.
I was displaced by a tornado.

I would prefer not to write about the earthquakes.
They left me broken, split apart like glacial stones.
They pushed me down from the mountain and left me
disoriented, sad and too far from home. The
fault-line
ran straight through my soul.

But I would sit all day unworded with
a friend who let the silence pass between us
like the slow bloom of the cherry tree,
like the change in the wind after a storm,
like the ashes who recognize they have already been burned,
like a dandelion being born.

After the fire I might sleep for a while.
After the fire, then the
whisper.

Housefuls of Hope

Housefuls of Hope
(On the Japanese earthquake, March, 2011)

Lodgingly we cling to housefuls of hope, shiftingly
the road reloaded its avenue, bending the open below
the level of the sea.

We had watched clocks wonder for seconds on the wall;
cars wiggle on the their rubber in the parking lot.
We usually waited, then ate our lunches
without remark; talkingly taking our time.

But the earth erupted at sea where we blinded
and sucked the ocean unkindly toward earth’s hot core.
Strung, disrupted lungs imploded and buildings pancaked,
wrinkled hats long the sidewalk.

We had no power, no authority to stop the wave
outrunning airliners.
We had not dominion but collision as sparks flew
and went dead. Water burst and dried up. Plates crashed
and pantries emptied fastingly.

Grab the sonar, diggingly low between layers of lots,
cars, papers and bones. Find the life before the breath
is stolen in the dark.

The worst since World War II, a nation gainingly risen,
a face before the world, eyes that dance and define propriety.
A face before the world, technology’s face, a face displaced
by tears cutting the dust.

I wish I could dig with you, bloody my hands on the corners,
dryingly finding my eyes strained, reaching between parking lots
to help a package of hope out into the sun. I wish I could
cry with you, wettingly combining my tears with your own.
I wish I could wait the night, search the day, suck the air
dry of pain and fill it lovingly with propriety again.

I will wrestle for you where I can, before the merciful throne,
and give more than I can, for your children are my children,
and our children are echoing to runningly come home.