Hurricane Dead

The next day –

unyielding blue perfection, remorseless sun –

the ruin is revealed

and the Press, inured to all hyperbole,

proclaims the scene

“a war zone”.

Where,

amidst the rubble salad served up

by the storm,

a sign of evil?

Where a hint of waste

(save human greed or folly played a hand),

the sense this need not have been?

An arm grasping at air through

the slurried mud recalls

others buried alive:

The tanks, fronted with bulldozers,

collapsed their bunkers under tons of sand.

(So much easier, and safer for our boys!)

Where is Nature’s cowardice or cruelty?

Rather some beast should eat my entrails

than succumb to human wit!

Hurricane Dead would be damned for haunting;

The spirits of dead soldiers should mobilize.