Shaken awake

[just mercedes]

 
 
So quickly midnight jolts you, a shoe
dropped into a gully of fresh grass dream -
you turn over, and a startled cloud flies,
reaching up like a hand into the sky
 
to join you, who belong there too,
closer than to the shadowed cave,
its momentary fleshy pleasures.
To join you, your fumbling quest,
 
your coming death foretold, afraid,
so now unloosed, now concentrate,
it shrinks to mist your blood, your dust,
your otherness. The earth quakes.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

[Leanne]

Can't have been a good night for sleeping Mercedes -- though this is a very peaceful-sounding poem. I enjoy the way you've built in several layers of meaning, so that the quake (which was pretty damn literal) becomes a metaphor for change, for dreams interrupted.

[just mercedes]

Can't have been a good night for sleeping Mercedes -- though this is a very peaceful-sounding poem.  I enjoy the way you've built in several layers of meaning, so that the quake (which was pretty damn literal) becomes a metaphor for change, for dreams interrupted.

Thanks Leanne  -- I haven't slept yet; each time I lay down, another jolt. Aftershocks aren't as continuous now - more than 60 different tremors since the first big one, 11 hours ago. 

My parrot freaked out so I had to pretend to be brave - but feeling the ground sway underfoot like water is an awful feeling. Plus, my home is built on the top of a big sand hill. My back yard has new bumps and hollows. Nothing pleasant about earthquakes. Ruaumoko didn't like this super moon!

[Achebe]

And there was one this morning too?!

[just mercedes]

And there was one this morning too?!

Literally hundreds in the last 48 hours. 

Now Paekakariki village is isolated by flood waters. 

I'm watching out for the locusts. 

---

https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/h...57b0139e38&oe=58C22FC7&__gda__=1489111037_1203558102fa712ff91fbea23a796ed4