Providence
Sensitive birds and beasts
Intuitively sought higher
drier land well before
Our overheated earth wobbled
Surging wicked waves swamped, swallowed shores in paradise.
Alerts, prompting global warnings
Bent and broken, knocked
Angst-ridden, tossed
Rolled around and around
Pushed, bashed by boughs of broken trees
Smashed cars, bodies and gaudy floating sun-lounges
Hanging on to treetop branches
Agony in drowning faces
Mourning mothers' empty staring out to sea, waiting …
Children orphaned, lost, alone
Surviving merchants lament, sigh, say,
our only customers are ghosts.
Overheated earth wobbled
Sent surging global warnings.
~~~
~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~
©barbaraataylorfebruary2005
The Calling of Number Eighty-One
Found amongst tsunami-
battered bodies, a tiny
infant kicking limbs
and crying, floating
in debris. Nine
frantic couples
squabble, claim
their legal rights
to him. They
fight to have a son,
essential in the family
- God could not be
so evil to take away
the boys. This baby
is their miracle.
But DNA solved it all.
Jubilant true blood-
parents retrieved
their own precious
number eighty-one.
This chortling child,
his little face aglow,
lies safely in his mother's
warm, comforting arms.
Some locals say he may
become a saint.
~~~
©barbaraataylormarch2005
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