Via Negativa

A shimmer of rain, now almost like kindness. In a news photo, a man
bites down on a plastic bag filled with a few belongings. His neighbors

clamber to the roof of the corner pharmacy; others like him, more
daring, brave murky waters to get to the other side of the bridge.

Emergency teams in schools and town halls have hit upon wrapping,
furoshiki-style, relief goods in T-shirts and towels— not plastic bags.

Garbage rising from the sewers with mud and muck: proof disasters
have not so much been authored by providence as human carelessness.

Is there any pocket of the city left untouched? Dams overflow,
jettison everything in the wake of their furious surplus.

Kedges would not keep small craft steady. What else might
loom on the horizon, considering this is only the beginning of

monsoon season? Without power, without drinking water; and
no access through submerged highways. Nights like damp

obis wound around our waists: where is that life
preserver? No dignity for hundreds crowded in close

quarters. My friend says, looking on the internet at pop-up
rooms (hamper-like) in post-earthquake Japan, We should be

so lucky. Where do refugees go when they can’t go anywhere?
The Filipino is Waterproof! We will survive, reads an

upbeat slogan now making the rounds. While that may
very well be true, there’s still the difficult

work of mourning, of cleaning up, of starting over; trusting
xanthic, sickened skins to the sun again, upon its return—

You fish among the tangled lilies and apocalyptic vines,
zeroing in on what possessions water has not erased.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

We were confused by sudden
spring: by warmth that forced
blooms open ahead of their
flowering—

And we were taken
aback by storms
that pelted pavements
with fistfuls of hail—

And in the east, a pall
descended on the city
in the aftermath
of flood—

In some places,
people clung to cross-
beams on telephone
poles—

And even the birds
held deathly still,
merely swiveling
their heads—

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Pulling away from the parking lot and crossing
the boulevard into 45th, I’m not necessarily
thinking of this morning’s early rain, nor of how
the sidewalks are stained with clumps of fallen
crepe myrtle blossoms. And while I have some vague
awareness of how, despite the way they stipple
the pavement like dots in an impressionist painting,
there are still such generous mounds of them massed
on the trees— I’m not necessarily preoccupied with
the idea that this might almost (if I forced it) work
as some kind of metaphor for the way there never
seems to be any permanent fix for our problems: two
solved, and five more pop out of nowhere like some
many-headed monster resolved to take the prize
for tenacity away from you… For instance,
having just recently figured out how to pay for
a used car, insurance, and sundry other items for
a daughter who wants to move out of state to go
to school, I feel sideswiped by the four hundred
dollar bill that comes in the mail for the stress
test the doctor ordered at my last physical. Out
of the corner of my eye I see the owner
of the corner coffee shop come out with a hand-
lettered sign listing the day’s specials; he ducks
as the boughs overhead spatter his head with leftover
rain, and just as I’m wondering When does it stop?
a cop comes up behind me and is signaling for me
to pull up on the side. Oh crap, I think,
as I roll down my window, and he tells me
I’ve failed to notice the four-way stop.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.