manana, no es mia

i sit here still and hear the cries

the mothers’ arms empty of her child
she holds in one hand the words
text on her phone “If I forgot to tell
you recently, mom, I love you

why did the sea get angry and turn

lives upside down? swallow them into
its belly before they could say their goodbyes
as they pray in their last moments for
the strength within them and those they
love and left behind

i sit here still, oceans away yet I feel

an anguish a pain of how their absence
miserably fills the emptiness
in mothers’ hearts who gave birth and
breast fed thinking they’d share life’s
challenges good and bad for years
before they themselves return
to Mother earth

we’ve been witness to the insatiable

oceans need to feed from lives in the sky
and those playing in its waves, I wonder…
these lives, are they the lucky souls, have
they been taken so that they aren’t witness
to what the rest of us may soon be
when the sky and sun is covered with smoke
of burning flesh from wars and denuded forests
and the seas will swallow the land from melting ice

dare not sit here still,  I rise and walk out side

breathe the air, kiss the earth, embrace
the trees, the birds, I hug my lover my wife
and my two canine children; tomorrow may
not be mine