The ocean recedes, the seabed appears, the seawater boils, and a big wave rears
its towering cowl, and heads for the land: it covers the surf, and covers the sand.
With the speed of wind it cuts down the trees, carries off houses, drowns prayers and pleas.
It rips across seashores like a curse returning, it rips through the fishers, boats, bathers now turning
into shattered remains, into jetsam and flotsam, cold bodies afloat, so chilling and gruesome
and while bodies pile up, the horror floods deeper in the hearts of the living, barely spared by the reaper.
Man, woman and child weep, searching the seashore for a hand, for a voice, for their life lived before.
When plates underneath collide and erupt no angel or God would dare interrupt
the fury of old earth in one of its rages that kill off mere earthlings all through the ages. —Edgar B. Maranan
From the Carlos Palanca First Prize winner, “The Google Song & Other Rhymes for Children,” coming out in 2011 from Anvil Publishing