Tsunami

• Poetry

The animals knew
and headed in silence for the hills.
I remember the light – a morning so clear –
I thought it would last all day. But on the horizon
soft wisps of cloud gathered.

And then the wave –
I lost you, the weight
of submerged bodies, forests, towns,
dragging us under. I thought I was safe.
From another country. Not prey to tides –
though once, long ago, I knew how to read the signs –
a gift of time, of slowness, of being in my body,
in secret. Sniffing the air.