It was the dreadful Milton hurricane that struck Florida last night. This morning I caught an edge of an interview with someone on the radio who said it hadn’t been as bad as she had imagined. Instinctively my heart sunk. I felt it descend, even though I knew it shouldn’t. The little boy in me wanted some great footage of devastation. I immediately tried to haul myself back into feeling a sense of relief that it had not been as catastrophic as had been foreseen. I am not a cruel man. and I am not a kid. And yet, there is this nasty residue from some more primitive nature somewhere that wants an action movie rather than a humane outcome.
‘The poetry is in the pity’, someone once said (was it Wilfred Owen?). The poet looks through the drama and finds the human, by-passing the lust for chaos which might just brighten up a dull morning.
peoplearerubbish 