Post-earthquake

Now is the time to help
those who have been forgotten
whose earth swallowed
their homes and
whose sea washed their bodies away.

Who are now off the front page
out of public consciousness
reduced to silence except for
radiation upgrades and occasional aftershocks
and back page human interest.

Yet starving in masses, scanning rubble
that had been neighborhoods for anything familiar.
Painful to imagine.
But the stories, if any, buried where
few might read and be moved to action.

Now is the time to help
put out a hand, a prayer, a dollar, a kindness.
Anything….
Everything matters
to those who have nothing.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2011

From Thrown Again into the Frazzle Machine