Every time the earth quakes

I awake to write a poem that was shaking inside me, and

I write it with sand in my eyes tossed up by the sleeping dragon beneath.

 

This time the earth quaked,

I woke to write to realize that I’m alone now — more alone somehow

standing naked in the door jamb with the cat at my feet,

awaiting the thrashing thrill of tremors to cease.

 

Every time the earth quaked

I’ve reached my hand into your absence, let it drag me underneath,

darkly wondered, how far am I from the centre?

How great might the destruction be?

 

And every time,

I silently agree to wait until morning to unwrap news,

watch it unfold as a cloud would over some still lake —

 

I will wait.

Just as I wait to see what ripples today’s choices will make

just as I waited to feel last year’s tremors today,

last life’s tremors this hour.

 

Now, I sink into bed, trust I have tread well, unwittingly —

sent tremors across the vistas of my life,

across the oceans of hours, faces of moons, setting and arising, wherein

I was rolled & wrought just so,

 

So, some tremor might wake me up

in a future time, in a future land, in a future body

to remember something I had forgotten,

write a few words, and wait ’til morning to figure it out —

 

Not much worth attending to at half past two,

not much worthy of my mind or heart, but poetry

and you.