(This is a piece I wrote many years ago during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I have never been to New Orleans, but still the images affected me.)
I am reminded of
visions from childhood – of a mythical place, of a lost city, a mysterious adventure.
I was not old enough to separate myth from reality, and could not comprehend
that I would never actually take a deep-sea voyage to swim amongst submerged
buildings and encounter freakish citizens who had adapted to their aquatic
environs. Nor did I speculate that at one point in time such a city must have
first been inundated to become the underwater playground it was in my juvenile
mind. No, I would never see Atlantis. Now that I have seen New Orleans under
perilous deluge, I am not sure that I would have wanted to.
Those are not freakish people with gill-like breathing systems
struggling to get along in a strange world. (Hell, not even the flimsy film Waterworld could have prepared us for
this.) They are human beings suffering insurmountable terror and dehydrating
fear. If the words by Coleridge -- “Water, water everywhere and not a drop to
drink” -- ever precluded humankind’s mercy at the hand of nature, a flood is
perhaps more poignant than a poet stranded at sea.
Real people cling to rooftops. Real
people lie dead in the rivers of streets. Real people have lost everything. And
for what? For nothing explainable or stoppable, and perhaps never before truly
imaginable.
If this were a Disney picture, some
hero would rise from the waves, roll back the waters with his mighty trident,
and levy the destruction backwards against the sea.
But there is no Triton to damn the
ocean. There is no lover to soothe Katrina’s angry passion. And as sure as she
has blown away her steam into memory and mist, she will remain a part of our
shared cultural history, just as New Orleans now awkwardly shares itself with
Atlantis.
Who knows what the future holds for
the Big Easy? Maybe the really big
and difficult task of recovery. Maybe the enormous price of rebuilding city and
society while burying family and dignity. Perhaps the realization and
acceptance that there will not be a city there any longer. Or, do we hope for the
humble resolve to move forward and somehow, after some time – months, years,
decades – survive? As Hiroshima did, as Nagasaki did. But let us be slow to
compare those tragedies. One the hand of nature, two at the hand of ignorance.
Still the devastation must be similar.
Somewhere off in the distant corners
of our minds there is the site of magical Atlantis, gleaming at the bottom of
the sea as if preserved for archeology and for poets. But here on earth, in the
awesome reality of our weakness against a fickle mother, drowns New Orleans – a
submerged and battered remnant of its former self. Intent to withstand, its
people push forward as a nation mourns and asks why and pauses long enough to
roll back our weathered sleeves and help in anyway we can.
There are survivors to be found,
supplies to be delivered, monies to be raised. There is the future to consider,
but moments that must be confronted which are the literal divide between life
and death, glory and tragedy.
We watch television accounts and go
to sleep more grateful than we were after September 11, 2001, for what we have,
for what we have not lost, and for what we suddenly realize is more fragile
than the last bottle of fresh water in storage. We recount what is more
precious than convenient food. We contemplate that our lives, our homes, our
loved ones can be taken from us at any time and from any wrath. And as we lay
down to sleep we dream torrid visions of other’s suffering, of other’s loss,
and we wonder how they will go on. And the whys remain.
For the remainder of my life when I
think of the fabled Atlantis, I will not be enchanted as I was during my youth.
I will be haunted.
