Tomorrow is anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake (magnitude 6.9), October 17, 1989. Hatch and I with our dogs Pepper and Roxy searched for victims in remains of homes and a burned apartment building in San Francisco’s Marina District.
Loma Prieta
for Roxy
That photo I snapped of you –
we searchers – finders of what earthquake
and fire left behind –
but how can you call it finding,
when it’s only scent rising through ash and char
that used to be how many floors –
stories of human lives
reduced to burned-black heaps?
Far across shaky rubble, you paused
on something flimsy fallen aslant,
four agile paws balanced at ease
before you resumed picking your way
searching –
that photo I snapped from atop rubble –
I who am still alive
and you, gone decades ago
in your own dog-time
like ash to sky.
~ Taylor Graham
