Tsunami Poem

Another poem I wrote that's part of an "Earth Changes" series:

Tsunami

Some hoped it would stay locked in time,
like Hokusai’s “Great Wave,” its balance
“most beautiful, just before” its collapse.

This isn’t high-cresting art, but rather about reach,
which starts by scraping clean with watery knife,
exposing unseen shore,

Sucking sounds of hands on clay,
that push and prod fingers wet
with oceanic slip miles into land,

Grabbing what’s grown, built, born,
welded, nailed, poured,
prepared and painted,

To carry back to sea,
that roiling volcanic kiln
from where it all arose.

~ Cynthia Gallaher ◦

Tsunami Poem