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When the EQ struck in DC
I felt the room sway
The building shook me awake
from where I had been
in a stupor
before the computer
for the last four days
stiff from self-imposed lockdown
I ran for the door outside the hallway
Oh my God September 11th Libya Apocalypse
But
I hear no planes
The shudder shivers
The building man is running by me
Down the stairwell he goes,
Pattering swiftly as IF towards the Boiler Room
I rush to follow? EXCEPT I have to shut my door
turn the stove off, grab the keys
get shoes on. In the fire escape
that building man was 3 floors down already!!
Was it in the basement? He's so fast!
Gotta get gotta get
gotta get get down to the sidewalk!
George was already outside
Nellie got there first
All THREE of them were talking on their CELL phones
Wait a minute...
They look cool...they even remembered their cell phones...
One of my shoes is untied
hair bound untidely in pony
tail Face white with dismay
Legs yellow still
No one says hello
as usual
A couple minutes later
Three female residents trot out---my age but laughing
mouths open--arms akimbo reaching out in front ready to put around
cute orange-brown outfits--Oh! What was that? They laugh engagingly.
George reassures them
It was an earthquake!
I was going towards the glass door
--Freeze--CAN"T!
My engineering instinct
my ego my feeling left out
in my faded special 3 for $10 home clothes.
Time to take a walk in the hood!
Along Newton, round the corner, I espy the building man.
He is busily stomping on the garbage in the bin
I can hear him too
Ogling at the building facade too, like me
Across 16th. Traffic still zooming bus by.
Down Newton.
Small groups huddle around steps
close to sidewalks
What was that again? Which side should I walk on?
The gas lines run every which way in DC)).
All along Mt. Pleasant
more pleasantly awakened neighbors
lounging about outside
dazedly reliving the dream
with one another
I marvel at the brick facade <STOP> still standing <SQUINT> near the bank <STARE>.
There are three fresh cracks.
Police squad near a sunk sidewalk slab--
sort of?
In my favorite little park
near Argonne place
the conference of the birds
I await them on the park bench
Hispanic men swap stories
and swat each other's backs
One dances and wiggles his arms
reliving the quake with his hombres
(who had saved hard in other lives just to live here)
Others wander there to sit
like me
This feels better
I even belong here, sort of, better
except for the white gal on her cell phone
I sit and sit and then...
marvelously // look up // slowly // gradually experience the revelation
--- The trees are still warm green like spring ---
and oh!
they have all arrived!
my gang of friends!
If only I had brought my cup of bread and berries!
Some cheap friend they think I am!
But they FELT it too!
Isn't that why they're all looking down at me?
Swat! *mosquito bite*
Swat! *Got me on the arm*
Swat! *Time to go home*
It was fun seeing you birds!
(poem and photo by blu-geese.org)
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