Earthquake, Haiti

A poem inspired by the recent events in Haiti.

This will play right into Obama’s hands. Humanitarian, compassionate. They’ll use this
to, to burnish their, shall we say, credibility with the black community, the both
light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in, in this country. It’s made-to-order
for him. That’s why he couldn’t wait to get out there, could not wait to get out there.
                                                                         --Rush Limbaugh

A man carries on in the ruins, carries an old woman
Clear of the broken stone, everything broken,
The world indescribable simply because it’s smashed
Beyond recognition. We talk
Of magnitude--well, on the scale of misery this weighs
More than everyone’s imagination. The world comes
Down to this, comes down like building blocks,
The camera closing in
Until you only see his face.

We keep expecting that other aftershock
We hope will cause the right stone to break
And with a softer resonance as from a body
Trembling joyfully, all by itself,
Because a black president
Is more an event than a man, belongs
To the simple facts we gather together
And call a world.
                               We stand poised, greased and waiting
To leap headfirst into the waters
Of change, which are warm like the Caribbean
Though we know the help will be tepid,
Less than close to enough because of pictures
Like this, the people in them who didn’t choose to be,
Who lack the luxury to decide whether they care
For the color scheme.
                                        But still they visit
The television that is our president,
Always alone or in groups still small enough
To distinguish those in them
Which is how survival happens, even triumph.

So he appears wretched and still humbly, oddly proud
Carrying his wounded neighbor
Like something essential, bond receipts, a television,
A pail of food, or water
As in that painting by Lois Mailou Jones
She called The Water Carriers,
Too few pipes after all, too little cultivation
On the little voodoo island
That bears the brunt of our curses
Because it freed itself. Jones carried herself
Like water, entered contests anonymous
As water so they wouldn’t know
She was black.
                               Her painting doesn’t show you
The river, not even the little bit by her side,
Just a bright hat and a face that resembles hers
And ours. Some day there will be people like that
On Haiti, people whose misfortune will move
All of us like the earth. Everyone will act
Indifferent as a river, which can’t tell its own
Smooth stones from a hand or a mouth.

                     

                                          --David Moolten

Reviews

[HorrorMaster]

Very sad poem.