PHYLLIS BECK KATZ, POET
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Picture
​Typhoon at Taroko Gorge
         Hualien, Taiwan, 2016                                                                                                                                                Carved out of marble, named for an indigenous tribe,
its constant torrents of waterfalls and rivers
       
makes the gorge feel alive. Once, together we hiked its trails
along the edge of canyons, sloshed through dark sodden tunnels,
 
craned our necks to see high slender cataracts, strained to look
far below to great gray cascades of rock and silt
 
carrying sediment to the water’s hungry mouths.
Now I look down to where Typhoon, god of the winds, boiled
 
a toxic brew of warm and humid sea, the right blend to force
air into spiraling gyres and raging rain and wind
 
ripping boulders down rock-edged ravines, gulping
chunks of roads and tunnels and spewing them into deep caverns.
 
Taroko’s wounds were mending, mine still raw and deep.

Copyright 2018, Phyllis Beck Katz. All rights reserved.