I'm indebted to www.phuketwan.com for the photo for this month's sonnet. It rewards careful inspection.
Tsunamis happen centuries apart,
Too long for any memory to survive
Of how the sea retreats before they start –
So fast that fish are picked up still alive.
If memory then could offer us no aid,
Today we’re surely better placed to warn,
To notify the errors that we made
To our descendants who are not yet born.
But have we learned the lessons of the past?
Are plans in place to show them where to go?
Or when they see the ocean sinking fast
Will they, as we did, stop to watch the show?
The horn of the loudspeaker’s blocked by vines;
And rust grows on the muster-station signs.
Too long for any memory to survive
Of how the sea retreats before they start –
So fast that fish are picked up still alive.
If memory then could offer us no aid,
Today we’re surely better placed to warn,
To notify the errors that we made
To our descendants who are not yet born.
But have we learned the lessons of the past?
Are plans in place to show them where to go?
Or when they see the ocean sinking fast
Will they, as we did, stop to watch the show?
The horn of the loudspeaker’s blocked by vines;
And rust grows on the muster-station signs.
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