Poetry

Earthquake, hurricane

The scurrying,

Running in place on earth

Against mudtide and ashes,

Belched volcano fire, wind whip,

Horror torrent of flood pourings

Till the houses groan like defeated whales

Under the onslaught of wild elements

People flung, pummeled, buried, drowned or burned

In the homes they conceived

In dreams, defended and fortressed,

Flicked out of being in seconds:

All this only to be wept at, can't be helped  

But that people in confusion

Willfully as acts of self expression

Emblems of cursed misguided identity

Diminish revile and assassinate one another regularly

As civilizations disassemble lashing

While the eyes of individuals go hollow

As caves in the black damp center of the earth

Hard and bilious acrid and defensive

As trapped animals:

This need not occur

And there's no other cause of it

Then the endless stupidity of our fathers,

Our own lack of vision and nerve

Locate the distance of self from self

And pry open mind's encrusted habituation

The soft words release themselves in streams of warm demeanor

Stand firm in the wind of valor deterred