Earthquakes in July

Feel your hands shake, brother.

Rise up in the morning before it is light.

Take a glass to drink water, and watch

The way your fingers tremble as you turn the tap.

It is cool. It is dawn.

Press your palm to your chest.

Inside, somewhere deep, the rumble of your heart is pulsing.

Feel your hands shake, brother.

As you stretch one out in greeting, see the flutter of your sleeve until your hand slides into skin,

Is clasped there: the true American greeting of men hand-holding crosswise, faces stern against the contact.

Look away from their eyes. Feel your hands

In their hands, held fast and firm. Feel the pulse in the center of their grip.

As you set your face to the sun, feel tremors from deep places:

Earthquakes inside as the land begins to shift.

They tell us: an earthquake occurs as the sudden release of energy in the world's lithosphere

Creates the shakes. Seismic waves.

You must consider geophysics:

Refractions of these seismic waves are used to research earth’s interior structure.

The tremors tutor us in the scaffolding of the world.

Feel your hands shake, brother.

Feel the earth shift.

See the spaces cracking deep and wide.

Then, stop and sweat outside someday. Plant your hands for chaturanga.

Watch your palm press down against the earth, and see your own solidity.

Your wrists won't crack under your weight.

Ekam, inhale.

Dve, exhale.

Feel your hands shake, brother.

Trini, inhale.

Catvari, exhale.

Feel your heart break, brother.

Panca

Inhale

Look up