Suddenly...The Earth Moved

Suddenly, normalcy violently assaulted.
We, once more, catapulted into an
unfamiliar world of physical dissonance.
Together companionably in our house
when with no warning a monumental
sound and furious motion delivered us
to a place we had scant reckoning with.

That force assembled its resources to
utterly surround us with its long, loud
wall of shrieking sound and tottering
frailty against a trusted reality pantomiming
a deadly opponent. Our stark shock and
slow recognition betrayed complacent ease.

In a world where nature can assume
its threatening persona geared to respond
with cataclysmic force, like a powerful
presence suddenly awakened to a
morose and malicious mood. We’ve
faced these moods before; one might
surmise once exposed to such power and
danger sanguine attitude would be
forever buried in expectation, but no.

Taken by shock and surprise, we cannot
fathom what is occurring until the
fierce tremblor threatens to bring down
walls around us. We exit, and wait, lurk
as the motion and groans of the earth
are translated to the exterior; in the
atmosphere of motion and commotion,
deep creaks subside and stillness reigns.

Left with a foreboding and deep unease
at this brutal demonstration that we are not,
and never will be, masters in our own house,
we move trembling, awe-struck limbs and
furrowed brows back into our house.
To restore order where chaos so briefly had
charge, and pictures hang on crooked walls.

All the wall paintings, ajar. Fragile items
tipped, overturned, contents languidly
insensate, spilled. Our telecommunications
suddenly out of order, minds slowly reverting
to the ordinary comforts of an ordinary
summer day. The radio soon crackles with
the over-heated excitement of recent panic
stilled, and people begin to recount their
disbelieving reactions to our Earth’s
flirtation with geological intemperance.