Easy tears well up as I sit comfortably to view
The televised horrors that simply can’t be true;
Sharply focused details of lifetimes washed away,
Families that were torn apart and left in disarray,
The misery and wretchedness, anguish and despair,
The shaming loss of humanity too many forced to bear

I watch with a surreal, unwilling fascination
The growing magnitude of a city’s desperation,
The helpless, the homeless, the heart-wrenching grief
Of the countless thousands who waited for relief.
And when the help arrived to alleviate and tend,
A new hell just beginning, the nightmare didn't end.

The multitudes caught up in the great evacuation,
Displaced and destitute, are looking for salvation.
Sitting on their rows of cots they wait like supplicants
For news of lost loved ones, hope and deliverance.
Provided with sustenance and safe from most dangers,
They are dependent now upon the kindness of strangers.

Wiping tears from my face as the News show finally ends
I look around in gratitude at my family and friends,
Safe and blessed with a home and many worldly things,
Members of the fortunate and the privileges it brings.
Somehow it doesn’t seem quite right to have so much to share
And keep it all to ourselves with so many in despair.

People wait in shelters for someone who can give,
A hand-up, not out, a job, some place safe to live.
In hopelessness, fear and undeserved deprivation,
They think about the future now with anxious trepidation.
Remember that family who took refuge in a manger?
They too were once dependent on the kindness of a stranger.


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Dedicated to disaster victims everywhere...The road home is long and our prayers are with you all the way.