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.


Copyright © Peter Goodwin, 2005. All Rights Reserved.