Mary Langer Thompson

Earthquake Seasons

1970, first California temblor

in the half light of morning.

I know the world is ending

due to my sins 

and I’ll be left behind 

in the Second Coming.

I say prayers between shallow breaths

alone in my first apartment on the second floor.

Fish spill from their broken aquarium

onto shag carpet.

 

1994, a blind thrust quake at dawn.

We live five miles from the epicenter.

I lose crystal, but not my little family

created with my love who

flew home from Vietnam the night

the earth shook in 1970.

I lift up staccato pleas for the shaking to stop 

between squeezes of joined hands in the hallway.

2019, almost fifty years married

our son adulting away from us here in the desert.

This time my mother, who fears falling,

rolls roughly with us again at evening,

the breakfast quake renamed a foreshake.

We laugh at sounds of breakage

knowing the earth must shake at times

and assure each other of the surrounding solid structure, 

my whole body a cathedral of prayer.

Our World, My World

Here I am like someone out of Our Town,

except there are no black umbrellas

and this isn’t Grover’s Corners.

Over there’s Brand Boulevard, Main Street.

High school’s near the hills, below the letter H.

The Lutheran Church where we married’s in-between.

As though I were the Stage Manager in that weepy play, 

I tried to keep you from coming here,

but failed miserably. Obviously.

Like the Director, I now exist in two realms—mine and yours.

I can comment on what happened, though it’s awful,

or what’s about to happen. Do I feel raindrops on my face?

 

Now I occupy center stage, but guide no one.

There’s no audience, and all the drama,

sticky sweet or dark, is nil.

Even the stage will soon be gone. 

I know. I’m struttin’ about, making no sense at all.

Maybe I should have brought an umbrella.

Stones and Their Cutters

Sometimes I picture you

on that hill, 

sealed in forever.

Perhaps when the moon

is full here,

it also shines on your engraved stone.

My grandfather was a stonecutter.

He carved many memorials.

Now I’m left to remember you both.