A Quake Among the Giants

Natures touch is both gentle and fierce.

Homo sapiens trample on her back.

The thick skin impossible to pierce.

Solid as rock, thick as steel, our foundations crack.

The ground on which we solidly stood,

now that the trees wave like flags in the wood,

footsteps coming-the sound is not at the door-

arising and building from somewhere in the floor-

Swelling, surging and rolling thunder,

rooted from somewhere deep down under-

Before a blink-balance be gone!

Nothing stable to hold on-

One snap, a jolting crack and painful flinch-that's enough-

to call our humanely dominant bluff.

But No! Twelve long seconds more.

A fear that shakes your literal core.

No longer on solid ground.

Nouns fly all around.

Pressure and combustion build.

Things made to contain-now spilled.

Propane filled rockets burst into the air.

Silent and vacant birds beware.

Buzzing bumbling bodies make their way through the five o'clock rush,

but on October 17th it became a Bay Bridge crush.

The epic series of the World stops dead-

"We're having an earthquake!" The announcer said.

Before it all went black-

It moved like a whip, I sat upon the crack.

Given the quake its title name-

‘Generalissimo San Francisco’-lame

because nestled in the Santa Cruz mountains yields no fame-

those hippie hermits know how these things go-rollin’ with it.

After the rumbling came the rains,

cabins on stilts and muddy rubble,

the busy city, bricks and fissured feigns.

Those mountain people burst their bubble-

As Kipling reminds, it's in our ability

to winsome and lose, but rebuild without pity.

Many survived to tell

about this quake and all it fell.

For those that like me who dwelt in the trees-

Not a front page picture-

but would history please acknowledge Santa Cruz

and admit though poor before, she had the most to lose.

Named accurately- it was the 'Loma Prieta' quake.

To whom shall I address this change in namesake?

Since I was a passenger on this crazy ride

Not living in the Bay Area, it chaps my hide!

Photo Credit: Author (my shirt-all I got from a 7.9 (8.1) magnitude earthquake?! Oh and my life)