New Poem I wrote "Tsunami"

Tsunami, Sea, Wave, Life Cycle, You and Me

By Dan Windisch 082810

D-E-E-P Earthquake,

great depths,

black water,

Water that has not seen the light of day.

The Earth

quakes!

Hundreds of miles of earth,

Covered by uncaring salty sea,

TWIST, TURN

In sharp jolting Agony,

Left then right.

Gigatons of power

Tranfer

Through plastic,

Non-compressible,

Black grey, then blue,

Waters.

With each agonizing, jolting twist, and jolt,

A new wave is born.

I am born, you are born we are born.

Small waves on a giant sea,

A sea already pre-oocupied,

And dancing,

with winds, currents,

The pull of the moon,

And Tides.

Just small waves,

Harldy noticeable,

on a huge sea.

Dan Windisch,

Teacher of Psychology

on a US Navy ship in 1981

watches on a gray, top-heavy-with-radar-and-weapons

US Navy Destroyer,

As sailors in small boats

pick up,

and save,

the lives of

Vietnamese boat people.

Dan is proud of his country,

Proud of the sailors compassion.

He is focusing alternately on the drama,

The compassion,

The wind,

The sea,

and sun shining on the water,

He does not see newborn small waves

Passing under the ship.

Each wave is small,

On the giant deep sea.

Inches.

Not noticeable

on a deep, deep sea,

Traveling fast.

Me, you, we,

Small on a giant sea.

Small,

part of something much much deeper,

Than we and me.

Shore now is in sight

if we,

small waves,

Had eyes to see.

Small waves with great power on a deep sea,

Morph,

unknowing,

Into rising waves

6 feet high,

Roaring,

Without ears to hear,

towards the shore,

One after another.

Waves crest into a large

“C” shape.

Strong wind caresses

And blows foam and

Droplets into the shape of a powerful horse’s mane

That we can imagine

but that has no Context

to the rising POWERFUL wave.

Top heavy and leaning

Over shallower and shallower waters

The still rising

Speeding

wave’s top,

Crashes.

Reaching farther than any waves before,

Sweeping everything before it,

The wave thins and stretches past trees and house

And screaming, then silent, people.

Then it stops,

For a moment touching land

not previously felt by sea,

and flows

back,

again,

to the

endless, endless

sea.

By Dan Windisch