A Broken World

I wrote this poem after the December 2004 Indonesia earthquake and tsunami that got me to thinking about what happens when tragedy strikes--more specifically, about the inner turmoil I was going through at that time.  The images of Japan's earthquake and tsunami are weighing on my heart, so I share this poem.

 

The earth tilted;

I fell,

Groping at ground cover,

Curled up until

Tremors thinned

Into seismic shift.

The sky was awry,

The world an unfamiliar rubble.

Groaning gripped me

While I, unbelievingly, saw

The chasm of chaos:

Gaping rock.

God became a fiend

And my inner landscape

Tumbled

With the roiling earth.

The blink was endless

As I took in

The terrible terrain.

In a jumbled second

Wilderness replaced my watered garden.

And only slowly

Did I know

That God lived in the gorge.

I am still learning

To add the “r” to fiend

And see Friend

In the midst of a broken world.