Burma and Sichuan Poems
Sichuan Earthquake
God, where are you?
The world has broken and
I am surrounded by death,
It could have been me
And I am so ashamed
I’m here when young lives
They were lives once
Are lying in the broken world
Still like eggs in the market
When snow fills the roof
Bringing it to the ground
Burma Flood
Gods upstairs fighting
crashing and throwing
buckets of water
banging the pails
shaking trees like
rice in a winnow bowl
then the world filled with water
houses drowned and we ran
without hills to help us
no Gods put hills here
our houses were too low
so my daughter drowned
my wife was swept away
she didn’t come back
I am waiting for
government gods in Yangon
to undo the work
of the gods upstairs
but they have not come
my neighbour has the
bad shit another flood
and her body will be
a dry husk of rice
to be planted
never to grow again