Bubble

elsewhere on this same morning
winds and waters rage, rending the wood, metal, stone
of homes whose owners huddle in dire shelter
while here all is calm, just another day, and I
remember a war

it was thirty years ago
on another just-another day like this
that the newscasters announced we were bombing
and I sat in quiet safety, a mere boy, with a girl beside me
and we agreed it was like living in some kind of bubble

violence of nature, violence of man
tragedy writ large afar and also no so far afield
written even in my own life where I sit
wondering
what ever happened to that girl?