Watching earthquakes at home

by Rozanna Lilley

You can keep watch

on earthquakes at home

with odds & ends

scraps of copper wire

an empty tin of

Planters cocktail peanuts

a diamond stylus (never used)

a motor from an abandoned alarm clock

The urgent temporality

of underworld shocks

and death-dealing blasts

your new routine

Transported for a penny-a-day

to the Aleutian Islands

(steam rising from snow-covered cones)

or the fault six miles beneath the floor

of Sagami Bay

A permanent signature of

River Red Gums rising

granite tors splintering

rainwater tanks bursting corrugated seams

Marks for every minute

the turning drum inscribing

a parched wind  a cresting wave

our juddering palimpsest

Note:

Watching earthquakes at home was described as a new hobby in PIX Magazine, September 26 1953: https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-467484165/view?partId=nla.obj-467517730#. The Great Kanto Earthquake of September 1 1923 emanated from a seismic fault beneath Sagami Bay in Japan.

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