Brother

Brother

There was a small earth shaking last week. It reminded me
of '94, or maybe it was '95. Yeah, '95. It was January,
my fourth winter the day in Kobe when 6400 died.
The tower rocked like a crib, but the bars felt more like a jail.
I remember you saying that the ninth floor never felt so high
until that day when we could almost touch the ground. The first
tremor hit. Then the second. I remember staring up at you in wonder
as you came flying into my room like a knight
in brilliant armour. Only you were wearing your Mickey Mouse pajamas.
I thought the world of you, the day the world fell apart. Curling up around me
the day 6400 died. They say it lasted twenty seconds, but I knew
when I looked in your eyes that we both died and were resurrected that day.
And I know that took a lifetime.
Then fourteen years later we sat on our porch. And you mentioned to me
out of all the goodness of your selfless heart that you wanted to travel.
I smiled. Nodded.
And it is another January. Another earth shaking.
When I heard the news from Haiti, I fell.
I was four again, in Kobe, with the earth quaking like Jello around me;
my ears hearing once more your soft whispered prayers
that tickled my neck and sounded like a chorus of angels
singing the choir of Hellsong. A quarter million this time. And I was safe
in the most dangerous place. And yet you died in paradise. I thought perhaps
that moving to Alaska was tempting fate, almost as if asking for another earth shaking
like that one. This time with no tower to rock me, no knight
to save me. But no, instead the shaking followed you. With your
compassionate heart and selfless giving. Damn you. You just had
to travel. Just had to help. Then last year you left me to face
all the quaking alone. No one to guard, no one to rock, no on to sing
lullabies. Now I sit quietly on my porch alone. Humming a prayer
that sounds like one's doom, the choir of Hellsong once more.
Because I haven't forgiven myself for your death. I shouldn't have smiled.
I shouldn't have nodded. And every day is Kobe again.

-Mariah

--MovingGirl