…tiny tots on the beach…silhouettes of fishing nets……tourists reclining on hammocks…seagulls swooping….man repairing boats…lovers staring at sunset??hitchhikers with beer cans……thousand islands…
….earth rumbles….. like a giant knife….slicing…unassuming…… mother awakes after a long slumber…a protruded yawn….starts her journey?… a slithering wave a minute ago….now she is a giant? gathering her children on the way??like a mother hen…..’let’s go’ she says?time’s up….everyone…
….muted screams on the sand…a child runs…boats rattle….overturn…fisherwomen in huts…holding on to the last straw…water on the ground floor…’don’t leave me mama’……desperate footsteps………trees sway, twist and fall….uprooted…furniture afloat….utensils.?beer cans cling and clang….marooned waters contaminate drain pipes?? hand gestures…sand in the eyes….women on roofs….children wide-eyed…
….fingers slip… ‘hold on there’….too late…..’ I shouldn’t have left her’…she was beautiful…
……………floating corpses……….nameless faces………..
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…unknown statistics ….numbers are meaningless….1,75,000 dead?…multiply 5 of kin….
….mother recedes into oblivion…….leaving behind, slapping foreheads….squatting in helplessness…no tears to cry…no home…just a pile of rubble and debris…. …relationships erased…..progeny stunted…no more identity…who am I?………whom should I live for?…..Why me?….Why?……
….TV screens blaze….200 people die….No, that’s 600…Google search for ‘tsunami’……make it 1,200….thousands still missing….unknown Aceh…..8,000….perhaps more….20,000 in the morning…..tourists interview…home cams show distorted frames………emergency supplies…Red Cross….UN…food shortage…35,000… ….. …ambulance sirens….48,000….Mauritius resorts ?…Andaman tribes??Chennai…. unknown ruins….56,000….Thailand beaches…. 75,000…a train runs amuck…water in the compartments… Srilanka bleeds….1,10,000….I found her….but not her mother….
…white drapes….fire and smoke?….mass graves…..muddy slush?….candles….flowers?…pictures of missing?…guilt of survival….Doctors without Borders?…naval ships…..
….helicopters rattle…..emergency tents, overpopulated….danger of disease?…squabble over money…..orphans…..widows….churches, temples and mosques…..war on terror on the back burner….1,55,000…
….unknown statistics ….numbers are meaningless….1,75,000 dead?…multiply 5 of kin…. 9,00,000 affected….add 5 friends for each ?…45,00,000…numbers are meaningless?…. words futile??science of ‘how’?…philosophy of ‘why’….sociology of ‘who’….none to blame….we are all connected….in one long umbilical chord of humanity….
The Mother Wave
has come and gone
taking with her the very children she fed.
In the warmth of her womb
we stay, afloat, (re) united
The Mother wave
has come and gone
leaving behind the few children she saved.
On the dry barren earth
our life, (un) finished
We may piggy-ride her tomorrow,
So let’s live today,
as though forever.
Author: Newton Dsouza- USA
