On ninth of February nineteen seventy one
Twenty years full from the youthful fountain,
A strung out rambler of a twenty year son
Up in the foothills of San Gabriel Mountains.
Early morning turmoil heaving underground,
Fissures fan out across the San Fernando Valley
He clutches rocks riddled with unholy sound
Shaking, a spiritless drunk corralled in an alley
A Veterans hospital fallen like a house of cards
He watches Olive View Medical Centre implode
Cries float up from Sylmar’s small town shards
“Mercy the freeways’s down,” I can see no road
A. McTiernan
