Lombok Indonesia Earthquake - Mercy O' Mercy, Why Did Thou Not Intervene? Poem by Bernedita Rosinha Pinto

The earth just said "no"
to those hundreds of voices
which might have been shouting for help
so many times, so loudly indeed
which no ears could overhear
as everyone might have kept shouting together
in panic, in sheer fear
just waiting to be saved from uncertainty;
they might have fled, ran without receding
without waiting to see the danger ahead nor behind,
they might have hopelessly uttered prayers
just wanting the earth to stop its quaker.

So many houses collapsed, so many silenced
as walls and roofs kept falling beneath,
none must have felt their emotions drifting
as panic was riding high on its saddle
taking mothers, children, fathers,
brothers, sisters, the young and the old
the rich and the poor on that journey
where none of their footsteps knew
if they could even stand steadily
on that ground where
they had played, walked and slept
all the years of their lives
in solidarity and solitude
but the very same ground under their own feet
was vibrating, cracking, dis-integrating
shelters, bridges, roads and streets
so perilously.

Where was God, they might have wondered,
words like SOS, Mayday, Help, might have
stirred in the winds like an echo
but nature had wrung it's apathy
bringing in a revelation that
upon the shores of promises
sometimes even the strongest, the mightiest
have to surrender to a catastrophe
which entrusts acceptance upon man.

And as calamity makes humanity weep
for those who lose their homes and families
to unpredictability of circumstances,
those who survive silently seek answers
to their queries they never assumed -
Will time ever be able to return to them
their loved ones they have lost in just one day?
Will their crestfallen voices ever be able to stop
speaking of that unforgettable episode?
Will their prayers ever be able to heal those cracks
which upon on their hearts are silently engraved?
Mercy O'Mercy, why did Thou fail to intervene
and cast away the doom and devastation?