Calamitous Yolanda

KALAMIDAD, KALAMIDAD 

(CNN) -- The stories coming out of the Philippines are unimaginable. Rushing water and wind tearing children away from their parents' arms. A death toll that may be over 10,000. A city of 200,000 in which no buildings appear to have survived intact. Nov 10, 2013

Death happens. 
It does with this Yolanda
Also known by the many sadnesses 
It brings into our living rooms,
Television screens, and the distances
Of not knowing where news
Becomes a banner story
Screaming with the silences 
We will never come to know.
We understanding beginnings 
And we don't. We rush with the love 
That we only know how, and tears flow
Into this ocean of our suffering. 
What life, mortal and finite,
Can provide the prologue
To this grief of Tacloban, Cebu,
Iloilo, Bohol, the grief in our words 
That would not come out of our lips,
No longer as easily as they did
When strumming a guitar
Was a kind twilight with the promise
Of a night of love lingering,
Staying longer in wooden beds
With the caring caress of rough hands,
Fisherfolks absend from the sea,
Farming folks leaving behind the furrows
To be kissed by dew
So that the morning after,
Waves just born stir the sea
The awaiting earth tempting the sun
To hug it so. 
O universe, O life, give us 
Reason to be here, one more time,
Longer and life-filled as before!
Take this Yolando away from these shores! 

Honolulu, HI/
Nov 10, 2013

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