Tsunami.

Tsunami

"Two weeks on, the Earth is still vibrating from
the massive undersea earthquake off Indonesia
Sunday ... reverberations like the ringing of a
bell...."--AOL News

   Two weeks on, and the planet is still
   droning like struck metal. The low coastlines
   shiver, waiting to be wiped away
   like dust on a shelf.

   On a flight the laptops deploy all around me,
   played by virtuosos, but not
   a single musical note. Birds do better;
   the note of water dripping in a bucket after rain;
   crystal clinked with a spoon to get
   our attention. The drumming
   of short-term thunder.

   But nothing chimes like the great gong
   of the heart of the globe, a seismic moan
   circling out. The waters throb within us for
   the next bell's tolling, when the ocean boils
   and hurls itself abroad as one more
   green speeding mountain.

Luci Shaw is writer-in-residence at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia.