8-8 / David Rutkowski

8-8

tomorrow is another father's day
clouds rumble in the distance
a year ago we drove through torrents
as (my wife will attest) i verbally castrated
the deniers of global warming
we skid-visited a series of shuttered
restaurants and finally
fixed our meal, cave style, at home
two days later, it was discovered
600 people had died
a nearby mountainside had collapsed
it was a place we had visited
a few months earlier
where we talked with the artisans
and failed to notice
half of them wore
the colors of ghosts
in the fields overhead
were tiers of rice and tea
and girls so newly pregnant
they still did not know
which boy they'd marry
now under thirty meters of earth
a morbid anniversary
of unceremonious elopements
rushed by death
forgive the meaninglessness
of words
directing my prayer
candle

~~
David Rutkowski
August 2010
Taiwan

Read David Rutkowski on usenet:
http://groups.google.ca/groups/profile?hl=en&enc_user=1Th4CxUAAABdvVEFf5RXuIwR4Fmqzc359h3i3SmjGmAJbX05nZ-8fQ

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