This is an account of a car crashing through the Trader Joe’s store I was working at.

March 20, 2009

Who would’ve ever thought work would make some Ruckus. Here’s my perspective. And some pictures soon to come.
This took place on March 13th at Trader Joes.

The Crash Of March

For ordinary days to expect delays we are not
Featured for prayers prayed, rather our group is
Peculiar in form and expression like comparing
Animals at the zoo, each of us has our cage, our
Fits of rage, our act on stage, our thrust to
Grow, battle with age and grays. Here is the
Indelible truth branded on our vision and told
In revision like aspiring writers writing responding
To the simple question: why is there a hole in the wall
And where is my wine?

The Crash of March has changed our vision,
Our perception, has rattled our cage, bent its
Bars, struck the chords of rage, altered backdrop
Displays to our stage and a slight increase in age

It began as just another simple
Day of delegated positions, all of us humbly
Not shirking our duty to fulfill obligations, everyone
Anticipated an early exodus, an extra smoke from
The cigarette, did we hypnotize ourselves to
Let our store walls break us, invade us, impede on
Our invincible lives?

This town, its glory and its vanity like the
Shows you watch that invade the endless
Tragedy of richness and maybe not everyone
Is a millionaire here, but in splitting wheat
From tare, I see a resilient society that has
Earned there retirement and down payment
On the endless waves that invade
Never ending ocean down the hill,
O, what a thrill for the storm to
Come, to wake us
Up from deep slumbering, not knowing
That one offset white truck could miss
A tree, geyser at Wells Fargo
Smack into our winery cargo,
Change our pattern, our limbo,
Crash like a kamikaze bomb,
Combust the empty space full
Of the wine that is so entwined
In high society, rushing like blood
Down his adolescent face we no
Longer had comfortable space but
Only heart palpitations and screeching
Proclamations that no was really hurt
Or dead but rather instead we saw
Through the crash of Friday the 13th,
We all still had our teeth, our bodies,
Our center of gravity, our balance
Beam, our clothes sewn at the seam,
Still together, unharmed but abruptly
Awake, that so far this life we’ve lived
Came close to ended. And in answering
The simple question and observing like
CSI we were grateful, we could’ve died.

Watching the emergency team stop
The unceasing stream, I reexamined
My keen intuition to dream, to believe
In things unseen, forces beyond my
Comprehending, protection outside
Of my own walls of comfort, for
Those too, also came down, for
As much glass splattered on the floor,
Split the ceiling, so the
Safe harbor feeling was shredded
And depleted, not money, not success, not any
Of this was on my chest, only
The burning awareness that life
Could be lost in a matter of
Seconds, the arch of the emerald
Rainbow could soon be asking me,
‘What have you loved for me
Recently?’ And God I wonder
Why there was no asunder, no
Storm cloud thunder but rather
This truck burning rubber and
Like me, asleep at the wheel,
Not awake until something
Starts to bleed, until out of
The ordinary comes the story
That some kid crashed into
Our walls, that no one died,
But I saw my pitfalls, my
Selfish ambitions and my
Jaded vision, that
Nothing could ever pull me
Down, not even the thrill
Of the winery, and dining
In this city, no pity for
Lucrative life, I saw it
Like a knife splitting the
Atom, when death is a phantom,
We are in danger, the arch of
Mercy is a stranger and we risk
Living like tomorrow is a guarantee.
I see, I love, I live in this city, I
Humbly choose to believe that
It was something not up to me
That 10 feet to the left I could have
Been taken like a thief in the night
And for all that is accurate and right
We survived the crash of March,
The almost fall of the arch of
Mercy that so easily hovered
Around each employee,
For this I am grateful and
Much able to boldly share
This story.