Old Poem

Catastrophe

The words they'll use to describe
what happened.

Believing to have articulated
what a tragedy that befell,
what horror was visited upon.

See how it deafened the morning?
Grass stopped growing,
weeping children
fell silent.

The words they'll use to describe
what happened
will leave us

with our hands 
cupped and waiting,
cupped and waiting,
in the 3 a.m. dark.

*

Photographer unknown
Poem written 2011