Tsunami of Silence

Lake Erie....i walked on water
when i was young
now, the ice cracks


~~~~~~~~~~~~

I was no-where near dry land
not in Chennai, Nanjing or Halawa Valley
when the last Tsnuami hit,
the Great Wall Of Silence,
larger than what I ever  
had imagined of silence
as it were,
higher than all the sun-baked walls of Jericho
come crushing down
crashing in,
it tore my clothes to shreds and I was bare-faced
in all my unspoken lies,
undressed in any familiar
characters of which I most often do relate
oh, the trickster had laid hidden
like tender babies in Anne Geddes calendar hands,
I was dumb in an instant,
giftless of poetic or Socratic words,
Neruda was a drowning bird
and Cassals lost without his silver-mounted Mother-Of-Pearl Eye-bow,
I ran hither and yon gathering my broken pail
I was Chiyono
looking for some balm or glue to put the light back in,
somewhere
to run to or from
to return this emptiness
that soaked through and through,
it clung to me
and it clings to me still
and I wear this new skin
and no-thing can I find in my new wet wilderness,
as if some impermanent yet eminent
final act of contrition,
I cough up more light
and wait for another drowning
watching with a newly found serene calmness
this volitional act of my surrender:
I dance with a bold blue-hued Shiva
into another golden-girded dawn
and the dawn always brings light to the
silent lotus essence
of a God-devouring night.