The Day the Earth Screamed

A powerful earthquake that hit Turkey and Syria on February 6, and it is the subject of my poem today. To put it into a local perspective, it is as if the people living in the Parishes of St Brelade, St Peter, St Mary and St Laurence all suddenly died. That's a human scale to the large numbers of the death toll, and something we can get a handle on. A mother and baby were also rescued, incredibly, after 90 hours buried beneath rubble.

The Day the Earth Screamed

The death count is unknown
Lands disfigured that we see
Scenes of devastation shown
Where dead might buried be
Oh how I sigh
And cannot forsake
Where struck the quake
Where so many die

Sound cracked like a mighty gun
Destruction to bestow
The world turned strange, and none
Foresaw the tragedy we know
Each loved or friend
Buried indeed
And call for need
For our help to send

Sometimes rubble hides the way
The cries of despair do ring
Resounding all the day
Mourning song they sing
As wounded lie
And fading breath
Gives way to death
Some weep and cry.

Rescuers arrive and will have
Rubble and ruins made away
And they try to save
All the quake did slay
And some they see
As suffering goes
With ragged clothes
Dig that they might free.

In life, no house, no home
Remains become their grave
In death, no friendly tomb,
But broken buildings
And what the earthquake gave.
The judgement day
This sight of doom
The earthen tomb
Wherein they lay.

Here mourning songs they sing,
This patchwork shrine
As mother and child they bring
In grief, a hopeful sign
We make, we mend
And those we raise
In saddest days
As they ascend