Collapsed~

On this April mountain morning,
invisibly a fractured pillar gives way, grates
against immovable stone, slices upward.
In the heartbeat of the quake, the sudden death
of stability and the shock of earth-shattering truth.
Beneath Nepal, the force of its fierce explosion
will travel through the lush Himalayas
to frighten children in India and Tibet,
and shake the solid slopes of Everest
into avalanche, boulder field,
as it rearranges hillside into chaos.
Thrown into the streets of Kathmandu
though openings that once were walls,
wearing the powder of sudden destruction
on their skin, victims clamber over rubble
to reach relatives and neighbors trapped inside,
as men, slung with infants, run toward open air
nurses who cry stop the bleeding, stop the bleeding.
Nearby, clutching one another, wizened women squat
stunned beside the piles of snapped matchsticks
of collapsed UNESCO temples, ancient towers
and beautiful gardens that now bear the brown powder
of pulverized concrete. On tattered street after street,
navigating houses toppled into tree branches,
teens-made-medics talk on cell phones through dust masks,
as they carry the bleeding on sleeping mats and blankets,
while workers in neon vests and helmets haul wooden beams
to stack beside the torn advertisements on storefronts,
colorful posters that just yesterday promised
good things to come: we have only the best.

Anne McCrady, 3-25-15

Newslinks: Huffington Post, CNN

Audiolink: SoundCloud

Poet with a Press Pass is a series of weekly poems written by Anne McCrady in response to current events and world news. The series is produced by InSpiritry. Find out more about Anne McCrady and her work at InSpiritry.com.