Raging Rockarts!

He's a poet, a singer/songwriter, a photographer, and we hear he can cook. Why is Nathaniel Rockarts so talented? Who knows, we are just excited that he is lending a portion of those talents to the "Rage Against the Wind" benefit CD.
Nathaniel is from Tuscaloosa, the heart of one of the most devastated areas struck by the April 27th storms. He was in Tuscaloosa when the storm hit. Only a few days into the aftermath Rockarts took a pen and paper and released the emotions of what he saw in a powerful work of poetic prose entitled, "This Hope Inside."
Initially he was contacted about providing the poem for the inlay of the CD, but producer Daniel L. Bamberg then decided to ask Rockarts to speak the piece to music. On June 9th Rockarts entered a friend's studio in Tuscaloosa and did just that, providing RATW with an appropriate introduction to what has become a deeply inspirational benefit music compilation.
"I remember several years ago going through something personal and finding a piece of paper on the ground which read, 'If you have Jesus that is all you need.' I kept that paper in my wallet until the ink faded," recalls Bamberg. "Nathaniel's poetic work reminded me of that moment. Only those who lost much can actually understand what it really feels like, and for those hope is all they have left, as Nathaniel's work suggests. But there is something about only having hope that says the exact thing that piece of paper said to me. Sometimes hope is all we really need, and I think Nathaniel's work says that loud and clear. It is an inspirational work and I am proud to have it on this album, as I hope storms victims will be."

The poem's words follow:

THIS HOPE INSIDE
by Nathaniel Rockarts

so many things lately
the deaths
the tears
the rubble surounds
the light it flashes eerily through the fog
the morning bringing a sense of distance
leaving a place i wish not to....
the lives and hearts broken
war zone...
our homes, our hearts
broken as one
together in our pain
so numb..
i seek an answer and know there is none
there is no reason
it rains on the good and the evil alike
we are united in the gloom, the losses belong to all
all the hurting makes me want to scream
but its defeated by the tears that choke my breathless
as i gaze with hollow eyes
blurred as my streams
so unreal
the lake, placid after the devastation
the stillness... with such debris and the remains of dwellings
decimated
floating slowly through waters so clouded
and with it, our futures
so many lost everything in the blink of an eye
so many never to breathe again
the bodies of those, those to never grow up and see life as we have
infants, adults, old and young alike
no age, gender or race spared
torn and taken, all together in our brokenness
so we unite as one
come together and side by side build up whats been torn
mend the rift in our hearts and homes
hold those close who are lost
become the family to those that lost theirs
create in the aftermath of destruction
the tears you cry we cry with you
the loss you have we shoulder
the heart you have will be filled again
the scars will remain a lifetime
but we will all heal from this together
side by side
hand in hand
gaze turned up and moving forward
all thats left...
is to hold each other
and wipe away each others tears as we start anew
make what we have left into something better
keeping those in memory who have been taken
we will see them on the other side
so hold my hand
tomorrow dawns
and its light fills our hearts
as the sun dries our tears in this sunrise
this hope inside.....
...its all we have left...

STORM AFTERMATH PHOTO BY NATHANIEL ROCKARTS