Some Things You Can’t Forget (Poem)

the sun shines enough to warm the sidewalks

happy-looking people on Main fill their eyes with history

noise from lazy weekend traffic drifts through the back door

barking squirrels jump back and forth from branch and fence

woodpeckers beat their loud rthym against wooden utility poles

all so familiar, almost enough

to lull me into a sense of ordinary complacency

underneath, the faultlines shift with almost perceptible rumble

and I cannot forget

that all of this ground is hollow and riddled with caves