τέσσερα στοιχεία: Γη

Γη: mainland china-
the year is 1556 &
the winter’s early
morning sun has
just risen in the
east of the gansu
province, where the
morning ritual of getting
up from the yaodong &
following with a
bit of tea, a boiled
egg & some bread to be
shoved down the
gullet, then on to
one’s work or lessons
from the high place of
the loess plateau as just
another day has come to
pass

then

without any kind of
warning, a sudden &
unimaginable
quake of 7.9-9 magnitude
begins to split 20 meter holes
in the earth, dropping hills
& forming new valleys
whereby “mountains &
rivers changed places”

this great earthquake
killed 830,000+ people,
leveling & destroying
everything its path spanning
as far as 500 kilometers away
from the epicenter in the wei
river valley of shaanxi
province.

with aftershocks for half a
year following the initial
catastrophe, though there
have been quakes of larger
magnitudes, the shaanxi of
1556 is listed as the “third
deadliest natural disaster”
in recorded human history.