this diary is dedicated to all who suffer because of war and other disasters
cross-posted at DailyKos, Booman Tribune, European Tribune, and My Left Wing.
images and poem below the fold
Louisiana National Guards of the 256th Brigade Combat team fill out papers about the status of their homes and family’s in Louisiana during a briefing about their departure to New Orleans at Camp Victory, on the Iraqi-Kuwait border, Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2005. About 500 soldiers from a New Orleans National Guard unit will begin leaving Iraq via Kuwait Thursday to return to the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina. Guard officials say 80 percent of the returning force lost homes, jobs and family in the storm and flooding.
(AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus, Pool)
A man clings to the top of a vehicle before being rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard from the flooded streets of New Orleans, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, in Louisiana September 4, 2005. Residents continue to be rescued from their homes and the streets of the flood ravaged city.
REUTERS/Robert Galbraith
The Shrinking Lonesome Sestina
by Miller Williams
Somewhere in everyone’s head something points toward home,
a dashboard’s floating compass, turning all the time
to keep from turning. It doesn’t matter how we come
to be wherever we are, someplace where nothing goes
the way it went once, where nothing holds fast
to where it belongs, or what you’ve risen or fallen to.
What the bubble always points to,
whether we notice it or not, is home.
It may be true that if you move fast
everything fades away, that given time
and noise enough, every memory goes
into the blackness, and if new ones come-
small, mole-like memories that come
to live in the furry dark-they, too,
curl up and die. But Carol goes
to high school now. John works at home
what days he can to spend some time
with Sue and the kids. He drives too fast.
Ellen won’t eat her breakfast.
Your sister was going to come
but didn’t have the time.
Some mornings at one or two
or three I want you home
a lot, but then it goes.
It all goes.
Hold on fast
to thoughts of home
when they come.
They’re going to
less with time.
Time
goes
too
fast.
Come
home.
Forgive me that. One time it wasn’t fast.
A myth goes that when the years come
then you will, too. Me, I’ll still be home.
– – –
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