Ben Grib

            

             

He sweetly plays his violin

And taps his feet and grins his grin.

He points to stars and bows to trees

And plays duets with summer's breeze.

He talks to birds and smiles at skies

Where rainbows form through half-closed eyes.

At dusk, just like a gentle rain

He softly taps the window-pane

Then melts into the velvet night,

A silver cloud veiled in moonlight.

____

The spirit of optimism.

But how can you think positively when the world you have known all your life has collapsed around you, when you've lost everything including those nearest and dearest, and when all you have left are the torn, dust covered clothes you are still wearing?

Easy for others who have never experienced such an Apocalypse to seemingly brush aside the horror, the irredeemable loss of loved ones and dare to even allude to optimism!

Yet what choice does one have? Especially when, somehow, one has survived. When uncanny circumstances have permitted one to escape from an inconceivable Armageddon.
To have survived is already a miracle. And when days later there are other survivors found and rescued from beneath tons of debris, despite and because of, an enormous death toll, aren't such rare miracles still wonderful?

When you've lost everything you've nothing left to lose other than the most essential. Your survival depends totally on others for as long as necessary. You have no other choice. Sentiments such as pride and presumption have no longer any real place. Everything that you owned, that you identified with, that reinforced your ego, that made you in your mind's eye different from others, has been destroyed.
You then have no other choice but to reconcile with this, as well as with yourself.
Your survival then depends uniquely on the love and care you receive as well as give. And tomorrow is a new day.

____

Considering the troubled history of Haiti- especially regarding slavery, (also with France under Napoleon) and the fatidical relationship between this Caribbean country west of the island of Hispaniola, and the USA, it might be hard not to smile ironically at the noble declarations of the US President and his Secretary of State regarding US aid to Haiti. Perhaps it would be wrong to suspect any tendency to monopolise on this catastrophy for political gain, or for eventual geopolitical motives and economical interests.
In this terrible case, results will speak far louder than noble words.

____

Text and image © Mirino (PW) January, 2010