Katrina’s Dead but Her Damage Lives On

The Big Easy has big problems
and no easy answers.
It’s a devastation
our nation hasn’t experienced
ever before.

Four years ago this week
we tasted of the agony of catastrophe.
But 9/11 was but an appetizer
to a bitter main course that has
left us fed up with grief…
and questions.

No wonder the tears that flow
give rise to the belief
that the contaminated waters
of a broken levy
are far from the only thing that
floods the French Quarter.

O Katrina, how could you?
How could someone
with such a beautiful name
wreak such ugly havoc?

You’re a two-timing heartbreaker
we will never forgive.
We thought your destruction in Florida
was bad enough.
But you had other plans.

With premeditated scorn
you humiliated those in the Gulf
who gratefully thought you’d spared them.

But there was something in your eye
we should have seen as you blew by.
It was a restless calm that seemed
to wink as though in jest.

And now that you are dead and gone,
the homeless, grieving stumble on
to right the wrongs you left them with
from which they’ll never heal.