[col. writ. 10/31/12] © ’12 Mumia Abu-Jamal
There are times, like these, when the matchless power of nature enters our lives and renders us mute.
Hurricane Sandy did this.
“Super-Storm”; “Frankenstorm”, said clever headline hunters, but words are puny replies to the power of nature.
She smacked the East Coast, churning waters into waves of tremendous destructive power, moving man-made structures aside as easily as a child moves Lego© pieces.
Some cities were flooded for miles; some places were wiped out – like a great hand from heaven swooped down and scooped it out and away.
Fires, some sparked by downed transformers, ate homes as firemen stood up to their hips in frigid flooding waters, fighting a losing war.
We live today, in artificial bubbles, of conditioned air, colored, flashing lights; online and wired to clouds of invisible electronic data.
And then, a storm comes, bursts our bubbles, and we are naked, helpless before a power that is awesome, and doesn’t hear our cries.
We’d forgotten.
Now, we remember.
–© ’12 maj