Fault

Suburban prophet and seismologist,
Emergency supplies prepared, I reel
At the faintest, merest, near-imagined shift
Of earth beneath this modern-day Pompeii.
Below these cul-de-sacs Vesuvius
Still sleeps and so do we, contentedly—
Correction: fitfully. On these doomed lots
We stockpile more endangered properties,
Defy the needle eye’s circumference,
Through which we cannot pass when we fall through
The cracks, when the gavel of Almighty God
Falls down to split the fault to smite us all,
Consumed consumers, for our faults. What pride,
What callousness, that still we carry on!
And I, who style myself as Jonah, own
A home in Nineveh, on sinking sands
And rumbling earth! Weep sinner, mourn and wail.
The worm consumes my shade, the moth my wealth,
The ground my life, and God what’s left reclaims.

(Spring 2016)