TREMORS

TREMORS

(in two voices)

It's their existence I deny

Maybe I really am getting old

Only well after the fact

Somehow it makes it seem all so valid

I prepare for their eventual occurrence 

That's the climax, the waiting

The event itself escapes logic

When they come i 

don't associate the 

falling off of stools 

for no apparent reason 

clumsy i guess 

nor do i comprehend 

the rattling of doors 

with the shuddering 

earth...oh it's the cat 

or maybe it's the wind 

on the 11 o'clock news 

the epicenter was in millbrae 

a 4.8 on the richter scale 

they have these marvelous 

machines that measure the 

earth's pulsations 

those machines its those 

earthquakes they do exist 

it can't be predicted 

when they will occur 

in the spring it gets hot 

it's the weather that gets 

muggy during april 

it's the waiting for the 

event, the eventual release 

of the earth's shudder.

Aug 6, 1979

(See Coyote Lake Earthquake. It was a 5.7. I remember that it threw me right of the stool I was standing on in Cotati. Makes sense that I might not have gotten the final strength right. Also makes it easier to date the poem!)

added 2/2017