The other side will rush east, in a seven-hundred-mile liquid wall
that will reach the Northwest coast, on average, fifteen minutes after the
earthquake begins. By the time the shaking has ceased and the tsunami has receded,
the region will be unrecognizable.
Kathyrn Shultz, The New Yorker
The gardeners speak in their own language
as they trim the rose bushes -- then suddenly
stop. Dogs wail. The sky spills it sac of dark
birds.
Part Mayan
or Aztec, they know the strange ways
of wing and fur, the pulse of rock and water
fearing something is about to erupt.
One of the men whispers , She's
in her coffin
knocking, telling us ---
she's been buried alive
for centuries, shifting, stiffening...
Another man hushes his friend,
say nothing more, I tell you, nothing.
They pack up their tools and leave.
A small girl looks through the window
of her house. Her face echoes through the glass
like that of a
moonlit child in a fairytale -- knowing
something
wicked is coming, coming
to drown the world in a cauldron
of saltwater and crushed pine, bones of the
forest
mingling with others. The Witch is known
to collect many for flavoring -- her stock, her
stay
of just minutes that turns
spellbinding,
massive.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------For more details and information regarding the "Big One" as described in this epigram from
The New Yorker Magazine -- go here --
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one
The drawing is by artist, Alan Lee.
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