Recollections in tranquility (a haibun by Taylor Graham)

Mexico City without Words

Sept. 19, 35th anniversary of the great earthquake

Today, at home, again I’m masked – not against cement dust and stench of corpses, but wildfire smoke and Covid. Here it’s quiet, sequestered as I walk my dog, giving hand-sweeps, this way. Relic of years of search dog training; useful in the jumbled noise of disaster. Rescuers hammering concrete slabs, sawing rebar with hacksaw blades in bare hands; scraps of half a dozen languages, then !Silencio! and everyone stops, listens for sound from under tons of rubble. A wordless hand-lift, my dog sits. We listen. Five days, partnered by voice, hand-signal, body-language – she wears no collar or harness, I read the set of her ears, tail.

Soft-bright light in my

dog’s eye says, someone's hurt but

still alive, hurry!

~ Taylor Graham