For all those who had to go through Yolanda's wrath.
It is hitting the button of a DVD player.
It is not fast forward, but a return
To the same narrative, scene after scene,
And the setting is Tacloban, the seas,
Rough and rougher, flattening the edifice of dreams.
It is Cebu, the waves punishing the shores,
Clinging on to something, roots on the earth
The earth giving way to onrushing waters.
It is Iloilo and its churches, its people
On their knees as the city is, beholding
What calamity can spell backwards,
Or what it can bring to make anything stand
After three days.
The president comes to visit, survey
How many of the leaves still breathe,
His words, callous as the wind, unable again
To see the difference between what is new
And what was destined. It is the same,
This want of something that fills the guts
To palliate whatever is alive, remind
It that the sun will come to shine
Upon the land, this wretched residence
Of lives arrested, aborted all the time.
Ten thousand people going back
To nothing, and here, here in this monsoon
Country of cheats, hope is what all we have.
Hon, HI/
Nov 10, 2013
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