She flips a sheet over the line,
smoothing it by pulling the ends wide.
Looking out to a vague and distant rumble,
she sees a wall of water climb from the sea.
A crazy person would smile at the idea of
putting laundry out to dry in a tsunami.
But, sanely, she runs for high ground.
Everything she owns is soon to be debris,
unclaimable, indistinguishable, and unsanitary.
But she doesn’t think about that.
She can’t think about anything.
Zen mind is her saving grace.
If she thought about how
tripping, struggling to her feet,
and resuming a limpy run
would spell her doom,
She’d trip, fall, sprawl
and be pummeled
by flotsam–
that chunky stew of humanity’s refuse.
[National Poetry Month: Poem #21]
By B Gourley in Blogs on April 13, 2017.
