Tidal Wave
This late December, the planet earth, to punish or to warn,
Belched forth its waters in cataclysmic storm.
In the Austral Asian Indies the New Year was awaited
By fishers of the coast and tourists by the sun elated.
For the first there was work and for the latter there was joy,
From dreary winter climes they came to lands of fantasy,
Bronzing their white bodies on the surf-bathed sands,
Served by smiling brother humans of exotic lands.
But for people of both races, terror was in store,
For Providence sent disaster from the Indian Ocean floor.
Call him Neptune, call him Poseidon, raging god of the waves,
Summoned all the vengeful forces that were his eager slaves,
Rousing them from a century’s sleep
In the silent blackness of the deep.
In blind fury he launched them on the shore,
Making no distinction between the rich men and the poor.
A towering wall of water thundered on the placid isles
Then tide followed tide, scouring inland many miles,
Sweeping away young and old, farm crops and cattle,
Devouring all the land and leaving not a chattel.
Humble huts of fisherfolk and tourist palaces of stone,
Trees deep-rooted, in some minutes all were gone.
Corpses floating in the muddied ebb and flow,
While some seized the debris to fight the under-tow.
Boats were carried on the roads, resting on their keels,
While carriages went out to sea with idly turning wheels.
People crowded on the roof-tops where safety might be found,
But the walls split beneath and even they were drowned.
Mothers held their babes in tight embrace
As both were carried seawards face to face.
We think of catastrophes also tragic,
Agadir, Lisbon. nine-eleven and Titanic.
Men are not fish who in water delight,
For their nature craves air and the light.
Water is a world with images strange,
It undergoes all kinds of change,
Disappearing when heated from our sight,
Transformed when frozen to purest white.
Dew, mist or raindrops, it takes the form
Of sweet April shower or violent storm;
Although of all life it is the source,
Against its fury there’s no recourse;
Whether silent sea or river that runs,
It is like Saturn who ate his own sons.
O water! You gave life but your horrors eclipse
All that was written in John’s Apocalypse.
Never was there such a spectacle sad
At Hiroshima, Waterloo or Leningrad.
Joseph Matar
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Translated from French: K.J.Mortimer
