TSUNAMI

It seems like only yesterday, but it was eleven years ago, on December 26, 2004, that the great Indian Ocean undersea earthquake occurred, killing  upwards of 250,000 people and inundating thousands of villages in the Indonesian and Sri Lanka region, in the ensuing tsunami. It gives pause to think about the fragility of humanity, despite a capability to accomplish astonishing deeds.

MUSINGS

We rocked, didn't we?

We sent rockets to the moon,

Ringed Earth with satellites 

And sang songs that echoed 

Around the world.

We tamed the atom and trained

Electrons to be our willing slaves.

We built bigger shovels,

Bored deep holes and

Scraped off mountain tops

To stoke our ubiquitous engines.

Paul Bunyans all, feeding off

The spirit of Walt Whitman.

Still, it is the emptiness

That is the future that torments us.

Foolishly, we look for clues

From Revelation, Nostradamus.

Then, more soberly 

We think of innocents upon

A widened beach, spellbound

By the incoming tsunami.

-e hujsak