The Parliament Of The Disasters

The Parliament Of The Disasters I, Gaia, call to counsel all my hellish children: Hurricane, Fire, Earthquake and brother Flood. Speak well of your preeminence, That you may be adjudged the worst By He Above, who ordains to every sentient thing, In forest or by garden gate, or pathway crude, The need to find his fate. Hurricane Rising from the equatorial sea, enmeshed in heat, I drive the waves as they were herds of cattle. Man's arrogant cities and his pathetic towns I see, as towering I look imperiously down. I hurl away Man's pride with wind and water And leave him heir to nothing but the slaughter. Many a smashed up car and dying tree Will bar, with long delay, his slow recovery. Fire My sister, Hurricane speaks truth, but we know well Her words are mostly clouds. When comes to hell, Its me alone that is its substance and its sustenance. For I seek ever upward, never down And all is changed by my mysterious touch. Not green field long nor desert is too much For my quick wanderings For I have speed, which, faster than the Cheetah swift Can vaporize the flower and the weed. Earthquake My proud companions, all of noble birth, Which one of you with fierce and rending hands Can change the very faces of the Earth? Forgive me Gaia, but the strength of Hurricane and Fire Leave all to be desired. For when it comes to gore, For everything which stands above the shore And all beneath,I alone can disembowel Even the foundation stones of Heaven. …..continue

….continuation of Parliament Flood But me it was that did destroy, by perilous rain All life on Earth, except for those within the Arc, Whom, The Omniscient One, for reasons of his own Did singly spare. He had at bidding all the powers Which could, with but a look, blast out the root of Man, But chose my drownings, bringing together all the Trickles, rivulets, marshy swamps and seas Into a great cacophony of waters. Me, who fell from space, at God's command Out of the dwelling place of comets, Was chosen to destroy the human race And strike Man's soul with terror, as none else. Gaia Children, now leave off your cloaks of vanity And pass the night amid the spectral dew. Tomorrow when the Sun, his silent journey takes, You will have much, so very much to do. Carl Estrin