WRATH DESCENDING (A poem triggered by a ligne donne): A Series

WRATH DESCENDING*


It is the retrieval of the limp bodies now piled
six-deep from the quarry’s downhill rampage
that assails even the prayerful dirges sounding
more like a pounding charivari, clangour of
spades against rock clashing with diggers’ calls

for gargling gasps of the dying and shushing
threats to yelping dogs and barking policemen
to plead for silence, a doleful quietude of hope
for hands to cut through the rubble, for faces
really, spitting clay and fighting through debris,

but the strangeness of a startling quarry truck
reverse beeper gone bad does the quelling work
instead like stifling a waking-up snore through
the trill of an alarm clock that’s advertised as
able to rouse even the dead; then stone silence

breaks through but instantly ruptured by the trill
of sparrows lining the pell-mell polewires;
the thud of the quarry truck’s spade startles
a duelling pair that tumbles through torn thicket,
the trilling sounds continue while a weary sun

sets signalling the perching hour of sparrows
absently chirping a cacophony of evening songs
as they have done before and yet to do
though hillsides crumble, or heavens weep,
or quarry truck reverse beepers beep crazily, too.

--- ALBERT B. CASUGA
Mississauga, 1-26-11



The Given Line triggering the poems (ligne donne)

A distant quarry truck’s reverse beeper has gone bad, and trills just like a digital alarm clock. Dueling chickadees tumble through the air.---Dave Bonta, Morning Porch, 1-26-11

(http://www.morningporch.com/)

* Originally under the Morning Porch title: Another Sentence (After Luisa's)