A Few Days of Steady Rain
June 7 2008


What refuge to take
when the earth beneath your feet betrays you?

Live long enough
and people will turn on you,
lovers disappoint,
children drift away.
But without solid ground,
how to have faith in anything again?

I have never lived through earthquake
— showers of plaster-dust,
crystal tinkling on the sideboard,
the bedrock you counted on
unsure.
When great cracks appear in the earth,
and soil can liquefy
into quicksand.

But there were days when the rain
kept on-and-on,
the way water can be implacable
wearing its way through canyons of solid rock.
Until rivers roared
and culverts burst their load
and water undercut roads,
turning sand into slurry
and sweeping the fractured asphalt away.
There comes a tipping point
when the water suddenly rises
with unstoppable force,
leaving you stranded on this tiny island of higher land.
There is nothing solid left,
and you can’t take a step
without the earth sucking you under.
And the world that may re-emerge
will be unrecognizable.

That’s all it takes;
a few days of steady rain
to rip away
the world you never imagined
breakable.