As you know, New York and its surrounding suburbs in other states have been absolutely devastated by the flooding and winds the recent storm has brought. Only now is the full extent of the damage being assessed, with my alma mater closed for already four days, along with so many NYC schools. Good friends and aquaintances, especially in the Rockaways, have had trees destroy their homes, basements and ground floors submerged, and loss of power likely to last for a week or more.
I ask you to please consider us in your thoughts, to implore the Mercy of God where the wrath of nature has caused the City that never sleeps to fall into an eerie stupor. I especially urge you to pray for the repose of those 71 (and counting) who lost their lives in the storm, here in the United States as well as in the Caribbean.
A deep sadness has caused me to write a small momento of the destruction that has transpired. Please, if you so wish, read it with contemplation.
Stay safe,
Archipoeta
The Earth Ender
From nowhere did the cyclone
come, beginning
as a sickly storm, slowly dying
over cooling ocean,
but then a fierce power seized
it, made it grow, and
Sandy became frankenstorm, unlike
any seen before.
People thought it would be like
Irene, menacing yet
unable to spill the sea over
wall. Half the city fled
to return to unshaken home, and
now they held same
hope that this storm should pass
without sad thought.
How wrong! How wrong they were,
as they saw it
transform into hurricane as wide
as Texas, larger
than all England, churning
unstoppable, so mighty,
the frightful wrath of God to
pierce the heart of city.
O why, o why Lord, did you smite
us so? Perhaps
it is this bit of Earth that
stubbornly forgets Him Who
made the world. But if it was so,
quickly did we know
this will be a punishment to flee
at tall yet paltry cost.
Even the rich, whose greed is
never satisfied, closed
the market of the world, despite
losing country's worth
of gold. More than this they
stood to lose once the wave
crept up and over barrier into
pit, tunnel, and treasury.
When it came, it was the fury of
the wind that wrecked
the ground, uprooted trees whole,
scattered signs about,
until at last the hidden tunnels
and canals filled to brim
with brine, mixing and making
stew of shit and car alike.
Behold this Earth ender, that
reclaims the land for ocean,
with rain and gale repeats the
feat of Noah's time, and we -
we are helpless, unprepared,
watching all liquify, be wiped
away and obliterated, amidst the
unpierced darkness of the night.
Requiem for My City
My city! O my city! That I should
sleep a safe night as you
fall beneath the ocean wave, and
become fine fish-house
devoid of men! A deep loss and
sadness banishes sleep
as I speculate what calamity lies
behind the silence of phone.
I struggle to know what has
become of the shore I love,
that now hides, since the ocean
spilled over sea wall,
emboldened by a fiersome wind,
that teemed with mothers
and their children, strolling in
the gentle glow of afternoon sun.
The capital of the world,
unwalled against any foe, born
of commerce and people brought by
the ocean of Atlantis
to build a daughter far grander
than her ancient mother -
now is buried by the same water
that gave it splendid life.
Where families flee, the water
fills the gaps, visits homes
and hidden trains, makes cars and
buses drift away -
the roads and streets that
brought life-blood into the city
are now clogged with trash and
creeping stench of crap.
My alma mater that never closes,
not for sleet or snow
or any other type of storm, for
week now will be shuttered
blocked by surreal sight of river
where there ought be
track of subway, trees where
there ought be free passage.
That I should see you so, bereft
of a people so great,
not one light left, not single
spark of brilliance to rival
the sky above, since a mighty
fire with tongues of rainbow
color burned last link of island
to the rushing river of energy!
I see even in my life how my city
shall die, though its citizens
return to lift vital underworld
and golden tower from the water.
The sea shall be repelled, the
claims shall be paid, and the poor
shall return to beg beside the
sidewalk, this all just a memory.
Yet when at last my city shall be
abandoned, its schools
and hospitals empty, the opera
mute and the senate too,
her only monument will not be the
exile's longing song,
but the endless pitter patter
that speaks of the columns
built four centuries,
standing here no more.
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