I woke up this morning
with twelve minutes to live.
Cell phone bleating, “extreme alert.”
“Ballistic missile threat
incoming to Hawaii.
Seek immediate shelter.
This is not a drill.”
Stunned like a butterfly just pinned
by disbelief
the unreality of the unfathomable
I text a few friends and family,
Tell them I love them and wait.
Blank except for, “This is not a drill.”
“Everything is impermanent.”
Unmoving, waiting. Nowhere to go
in this paradise of palms and plumeria.
Apprehension, a slow burning,
not cold. Still as winter leafing.
Thirty eight minutes to the official
“false alarm.” I decide I must get
to the ocean, soak in the sky, wear velvet.
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Hawaii governor took 15 minutes to announce missile alert was false [CBS]
Carol Alena Aronoff, Ph.D. is a psychologist, teacher and poet. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies and has won several prizes. She has published a chapbook as well as 5 books of her poems and photographs: The Nature of Music, Cornsilk, Her Soup Made the Moon Weep, Blessings From an Unseen World, Dreaming Earth’s Body. Currently, she resides in rural Hawaii.
