Earthquakes and Hurricanes: From Here

I am in the sun on the roof of a hotel in Barcelona, across the way I can see the cable cars that lead down to the Olympic village and back home the earth is shaking, the rain is pouring, the waves pounding and no doubt trees falling, and I wonder how I can be so disconnected from my world. 

It reminds me of a poem I read on the walls of the Tube when I lived here 24 years ago (yes they post poems in the London subway).  And it describes the way I feel living here while the rest of my world is shaken by earthquakes and overrun by hurricanes.  Although I can follow what happens, I am not there, I am here and the distance lengthens and although it's been only a week, it isn't my world.  How is my house, our dogs, our friends, the office, our life? (Not in that order friends, I worry about you before the dogs…)

In spite of fires on the horizon, castles blown up,
Tribes on the march, planets in motion…

I imagine the earth when I am no more,
Nothing happens, no loss, it’s still a strange pageant, Women’s dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley." 

C. Milosz