Aftershock

It's time to clean up the edges,
pull up the overgrowth, yank
the weeds away from the fence;
to turn and level the soil.

I don't have the knack 
that the neighbors do 
for clearing their yards
of every dry pine cone
almost as if at the exact 
moment the trees pelt them down;

for using their leafblowers
like edgers. So much of the world
falls unbidden into the spaces 
we like to carefully curate.

Indoors, I've had to separate
the monstera practically jumping
out of their pot from overcrowding.
But how much can I really control? 

I gasped when I saw on the news 
how the water on rooftop pools 
sloshed over the sides of eighty-
floor hotels, before the balconies 
collapsed one on top of the other 
from the force of an earthquake.  

I lived, somehow, through a similar 
moment over thirty years ago. I could say 
time stopped, though I know it didn't. 

It simply continued to vibrate 
in a way no one could deny—
only stronger, more visibly.