It’s the Location, Buddy

It's the Location, Buddy

Be it on the Ring of Fire,

Or the Hurricane Trail,

The slaughtergrounds of war,

Or the flying nukes path,

By the flammable summer thistles,

Or the banks of flooding rivers –

It’s the location, buddy.

Wooden huts are good for earthquakes,

Bad for storms.

Your concrete house will save you from the Cat 4 cyclone,

But collapse on top of your children with a shallow tremor.

Even if an ocean separates you

From the churning grounds of terrorism,

The marauding hordes of those foreign undesirables –

That same warming ocean

Will bring to your shores the raging storms

Whose causation you so much want to deny.

A rich country has all the resources,

But if you grow your own cassava,

Have some chicken and pigs

You might be better off

If power fails,

Communications disrupt,

Cellphones render inutile.

It’s the location, buddy,

I know because I live at the junction of three continents

At the historic crossroads of everybody’s ambitions.