poem to the earthquake

our August-earthquake has been fodder for creative thought. This is the fourth poem I've written that concerns itself with it.

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The Memory of the Earthquake

It is not just my mind shuddering.
It is the earth also,
shaking in the night
at the memory of the thing
that moved it and changed it
only hours before.

It is an echo moving and remembering

and pulsing through my shins
as the floorboards shimmy themselves
against the house foundation.

The Washington Monument
suffered a crack along the west-side,
and several smaller ones along
the corners and bases. So it is also
sitting, and if the aftershock
reaches that far, it is remembering, too

how quickly the dizziness came to that site.

In 200,000 dollars it will be sound,
ready to move on with its life.

This night I am unsound,
having woken up to the settling down,
and cannot comprehend
the vastness of all this -
the world is always opening up
and making things new,
isn't it?

In the morning I will wake
to find picture frames shifted
slightly out of place, maybe even
a few things fallen off the mantle.

It will be brand-new-ground,
slanted, having surrendered position
where I walk, where I try to listen to the memory
of the quake, fragile,
like everything around.

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