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.

~~~