IN BANGLADESH

Lines written on 24th December, 2018... 

It will be lunch time now in Valletta.
They will be dining
and sipping wine in the
roadside restaurants and watching
the passing tourists
who have come to celebrate Christmas.

It will be dark and cold
in Alberta at this time.
The streets will be lit up
with multi coloured Christmas lights
that bewitch both eye and brain.
The city will be mostly asleep,
except for the party goers
singing along the sidewalks,
like the girl in the red
Santa costume, dancing
around a pole in the all night club.

In Reykjavik they'll be clearing snow
from front doors, then going out
last minute Christmas shopping
on skis and sleds over deep snow
that sparkles and glistens
beneath a dark winter sky.

In Bangladesh it is evening,
but not like other evenings.
This one is tragic.
A tsunami has hit.
The villages, the people,
all have been swept away.
By the hand of God?
What true God would inflict such agony
upon his faithful and obedient worshippers?

Volcanoes will erupt, spewing out
molten lava. Tsunamis and earthquakes follow...
while, elsewhere, are peaceful paradises.

In all these places I have never been
my presence dwells: aah, such pleasure...
and the most heart-rending and debilitating compassion.