The topic for the December 2012 Equal Writes group at Belgrave was “The Earth Moved”, for which I wrote this poem:

The Earth Moved

Short, brief shakes of quakes
Bring people onto the streets
Waves to the shore
Fear, panic, sadness

Slow, imperceptable movement
Plates grind against each other
One pushing the other down
To be recycled

Magma from melted rock reborn
pushes up through the crust
Volcanoes erupt
Building new land

Elsewhere two plates collide head on
Neither able to give way
The pressure becomes to much
Land buckles into mountains

Rain falls on far hills
Each drop excavating tiny holes
On rock that seems immutable
Wearing down over ages

In a few billion years
The Sun will grow large and red
The Earth will boil away
and move out into the Universe

Our small pale blue dot gone
and all it ever contained
Star stuff returning to space
eventually, maybe, to be reborn