SEASHELLS & SHATTERED BRICK
By David Burman
(Written after two days of clearing up debris on a lot on Nicholson Avenue in Waveland, Mississippi.)
Two days did our lives consist
of seashells and shattered brick,
of broken flooring with no house on top,
of broken glass buried, buried deep,
deep in the depths of the dirt where dreams are dead,
of broken dreams in the dirt along with the dirtied up Carl Hiassen,
all lying in this desolate place
of seashells and shattered brick.
For on this spot ten months ago
this house like a rock stood tall,
like this the rock stood, stood, stumbled, and fell,
and like this fell to the wrath of the furious waters,
and like this shattered, shattered into ten thousand pieces,
and like this settled as the winds died down,
and like this settled, an unsettling reminder of all that has been lost,
lost to the endless miles of shattered rocks,
the endless miles of the empty lots,
the endless dead, untended miles
of the seashells and shattered brick.
But the dead earth groaned again
under the wheel of the wheelbarrow,
hauling its own weight away.
Away went the weight, one pound of ten trillion,
of ten zillion tears of pain.
Away went the floorings, the bricks, the Carl Hiassen,
and in came a chance again to begin,
to begin building a new rock,
and to waken up the earth,
to remove the dark blanket
of seashells and shattered brick.
Yet over to our left, our right,
and behind us and in front,
stretched acre upon acre, lot upon lot,
of sleeping earth and broken rock,
of shut up windows and empty shacks.
Are we but a speck upon this stubborn plain?
Seven shards shoveled into the pile,
while seven trillion more sit staring up,
staring untended, strewn across this plain
of seashells and shattered brick.
Specks in a sense perhaps but consider this;
our crew numbers seven;
seven caps, seven smiles, seven hearts, seven souls,
seven people taking on ten billion shattered bricks,
seven patient shards at a time.
Seven small shovels wielded by seven great hearts
to help the earth find its heartbeat.
So forth the seven shovelers,
may their wheelbarrows roll on.
For it is theirs to plant the mustard seed,
from which shall sprout new life.
A new rock shall stand
tall as sentinel on the great sea,
cowering in the sight of the seven shovelers
who make clean the fields
of seashells and shattered brick.