Deep in the throes of moonless sleep,
the beat of cicadas syncopate
with the sough of midnight wind.
From far down in the well of my dream
vibrations rise up, and, like anyone,
I weave those first few tremors
into the fabric of my dream story.
It is only the sway of a lover’s dance,
the tremble of a restless herd.
But it is a sound that awakens me at last,
the shriek of my brother’s daughter.
She who sleeps so fitfully
on even the most silent night,
she of the night terrors,
who this night saves us all
with her waking cry.
It is the night her oft imagined horrors
are become real, for this is no dream.
It is our mountain sprung to life,
dancing, cavorting, tossing
us about like playthings.
By the mercy of Allah, ours
is a small village and only lightly built,
so while the damage is complete,
the people are little harmed
save for their calm and the time
that will be lost in the rebuilding.
But down in the city, where the stones
rise high into the sky, tonight
there will be a reckoning
and even as the tremors fade, it seems
I can hear on the night wind
the faint distant cries of the entombed.