POETRY: Seismic Tremors
Abdal-Hayy Moore
Posted May 2, 2003 •Permalink • Printer-Friendly VersionSEISMIC TREMORS
Seismographs all over town are registering
heavy tremors
Birds as far away as Caracas are dropping
food from their beaks in wonder
Beetles on leaves in the Amazon suddenly
change back from bright yellow with blue spots to
black with red zigzags
L. Washington Hoop the third tuba on the right of the town’s
marching band almost swallows his mouthpiece
As Luck Would Have It and The Luck of the Draw to say
nothing of Lady Luck and even Lucky Luciano who was
ultimately rather unlucky
cash in their chips in favor of something more certain
Alaska opens its eyes and its mouth a little under that
promontory of a nose there on the map and
whales swim in a wider sea
The sky folds back some of its foil to reveal
a hand-tinted panorama of heavenly frolics so
ecstatic nothing below can hold back for an
instant and lets out an unhesitant yell on
behalf of creation
Shrill whistles become choirs of angels and
loud sonorous bells become
a child’s voice singing in the wilderness
Bridges everywhere in the world grip both sides of their
extremities and stretch a little after such
longtime service but no one even notices but one or two
old salts who blame it on the rum
Why has all this taken place? Why are
robins giving their worms an extra flick in the
air before cramming them down their baby’s throats?
Why has the acrobat lost it for a second and thrown everything she
has into the air including a bicycle with its
rider and an astonished observer and yet manages to keep them all
safely aloft for a full minute while singing
at the top of her voice sweet arias from Puccini?
God lets the world see His Face for an instant even though some might not
say it exactly like this
He in His Compassionate Wisdom lets a
ray of His Countenance fall into the universe between a
herd of sheep in the rain and a jeweler’s display of
diamonds on black velvet
And boats backtrack for about a minute through their own
wakes and people with no courage to be themselves let down their
well-fortified defenses and say “I love you madly and truly”
to just about anyone
And one old lady says it to a man three years her elder who has been
courting her for over a decade
And a squid stops being so inky and glides
forward undersea in gorgeous curtains of filtered aqua light
And for a moment no one on earth feels afraid of
anything including death both gentle and violent
And a light appears around the edges of everything which some see as
all the colors of the rainbow and others as
messages of comfort from departed family members
And when the earth again enters its zone of
material darkness which isn’t in fact what it does at
all His Face His Most Beneficent Face is actually always
exposed once our hearts are exposed
all the creatures continue their course with
surer footing and all song hits
newer registers and all the
eyes of every mortal fill for a moment with
refreshing tears with just the right amount of
salt and just the right amount of
gratitude and through their liquid draperies
see a world bathed throughout shake itself like a
dog just emerged from the sea
its ears flapping and water beads flying in
every direction at once seeking
fine places to land on with all their
individual jewels and sacred places to
disintegrate one water bead at a time back
into the Invisible again
in which we can all see ourselves coming to meet us at last with a
genuine smile on our lips and true
words of wisdom and encouragement
true moments of silence
and seismic tremors both great and small
of true love
4/13
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