Broken Watches

Broken watches, frozen hands
pulled from landslides, from debris.
Mud-stained faces, shattered bands

crystals cracked and scratched by sand
windows on catastrophe,
these broken watches. Frozen hands

raised in prayer or command,
unheard by disaster. See
these mud-stained faces. Shattered bands

of mourners search the shattered land
while more typhoons rise from the sea.
Broken watchers, frozen hands

linked against the new demands
of mere survival, wipe their tears
from shattered mud-stained faces. Bands

of racing rain and twisting strands
of stormcloud fill the sky with fear
and broken watches.



Wristwatches found at the site of a landslide site caused by heavy rain in Kumano, Japan. Photograph: Issei Kato/Reuters

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