AFTER THE CATACLYSM

the first to arrive were strangers

who saw men

women

very few children

standing sitting wailing

their possessions scattered

homes shattered

families reduced

their lives frozen

surrounded by the garbage

of what had once been their homes--communities--streets--coherence.

Those strangers walk past the dead and the barely living

picking through the rubble of wrecked lives

the ruined remains of what is no longer

walls doors chairs tables photos papers records dolls toys shirts

skirts sarongs boats docks bikes buses bricks roofs walls cinders

glass logs dogs goats rats rugs

scattered flotsam

stagnant and putrid waters

rotting bodies

the smells of death and disease

The strangers offer nothing

take nothing

sell nothing

do nothing

they just look and they leave

with their stories to tell

After the sea had done its damage

destroying communities and lives

the dead recalled the living back to life.

As the barely living stumbled through the rubble

searching for wife, husband, parent, child

the dead called to them.

When they realized that most of what they valued was gone

parent, children, loves

gone, all gone

the present, the past, the future

gone, all gone

when they wondered why they should live

why not just lie down and die

the dead called to them.

The dead called to them.

They searched among the dead

for their own dead

they gathered up the dead looking

for their own dead

they piled up the dead looking

for their own dead

they buried the dead looking

for their own dead

And when the dead started to rot

laying too long in putrid water under an indifferent sun

the features of the dead distorted,

ugly and unrecognizable,

stinking

they continued to gather up the dead

knowing that among those shapeless, formless lumps of flesh

were their own dead

knowing that somewhere in that pile

that truck load

that mass

were their own dead

the dead gently, urgently calling on the living

summoning the barely living back to life.

And if no formal prayers were said

no one to officiate

no proper ceremony

the barely living said a silent prayer

shed a tear

and a sorrowful farewell

And the dead,

the dead said farewell;

be healthy, be strong, remember.

The barely living started to live again.