The hurricane hit in 1969, <br />no matter that it came from inside me. <br />It was the Big One, a raging fury <br />that uprooted all pilings, divested me <br />of moorings and infrastructure, <br />left me reaching up <br />from a broken roof of desperation <br />on a dark night without shelter, <br />left nothing to start again with <br />but a seed, very deep within. <br /> <br />I wrote a poem years later that began, <br />“none can imagine <br />the ocean of suffering <br />some minds are drowning in, <br />as none can imagine <br />the sea of joy <br />some other minds have found.” <br /> <br />Today I watch the people in New Orleans <br />bereft, clinging to their rooftops, <br />huddling in a flooding stadium. <br />I can’t feel how hot it is there, <br />or what it's like when the toilets <br />and water taps don’t work, <br />there’s no food, <br />a stinking river is rising, <br />and you don’t know where your wife is. <br />TV offers a hint of the devastation, <br />imagination refuses to flesh out the rest. <br /> <br />The seed of my own new life, <br />after Shiva* finished off the old, <br />has flourished. I’m a man <br />with a profession, a wife and a house— <br />thirty-five years spent to attain <br />some balance and try to keep <br />the flame of inner life alive. <br /> <br />I don’t understand the ways of God. <br />It could all be gone again tomorrow. <br />If that happened—and I were fully aware— <br />I should prostrate on the ground and thank Him. <br />____ <br /> <br />*Shiva—the Hindu god of Destruction, part of the trinity that also includes Brahma (Creation) and Vishnu (Preservation) . Destruction= the beginning of a new cycle of creation.<br /><br />Max Reif<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-big-one/
