Tuesday Poem: “This Will Be Us”
This Will Be Us
This will be us, one day —
faded photographs
for archivists and future
generations to pore over,
speculating on how
we must have felt, what
it must have been like …
… being lowered
from a high building
on ropes, or having one foot
amputated in situ
by a policeman to free
the rest of the body
from the rubble
of a collapsed building.
.
Or perhaps these historians
yet to come may stare
at footage of suburbs flooded
by silt and sewerage
after groundwater was forced
up by the shock waves
and mains burst
everywhere; all the bridges
between Cathedral Square
and the sea closed,
bar one, and holes
opening in roads —
large enough
to swallow SUVs.
.
Or will those to come
pause instead over photos
of the student volunteers,
shovels in hand
as they move en masse
to dig out half a city,
dust whipping up
into a grit storm
around them … And yet,
how could that future observer
feel more
than a passing wonder,
a flash of empathy …
.
… any more than we do now
when looking at old records
of past disasters:
the great pandemic, say,
that followed World War 1,
or the Wahine storm —
and only fleetingly imagine
the reality that these people —
flickers on a newsreel,
stills in a frame —
experienced, lived through,
endured.
.
© Helen Lowe, 2011
.
This poem is dedicated to the police and rescue services, and to the Student Volunteer Army, the Farm-y Army, and all the other volunteers who picked up whatever they had and “did for others”* after each of the major earthquakes of September 4, 2010, and February 22 and June 13, 2011, in Christchurch.
.
* from Forever Young, by Bob Dylan
” … may you always do for others
and let others do for you …”
—
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So I read this about an hour ago. A little introspection later I’m back. I am amazed by the way you communicate what you want to say. Half a world away I can conjure up faces I know who fit. The angle you took with this is brilliant. It makes me want to be a better writer. More importantly a better person. I’ve been considering a poem by Buson the last couple weeks,
In seasonal rain
along a nameless river
fear to has no name
I wonder if nature was not so kind to him too.
Thanks Helen
Steve, thank you—this one took a bit of work and may require some more yet, but I think the essence is definitely there now. As a poet, I know that I am on the right track when the work speaks strongly to readers and listeners, so thank you for giving me that feedback. The Buson is very evocative—and unusual for a haiku in that normally (or so we are taught) the haiku masters eschewed non-concrete concepts, eg an emotion such as fear. And yet, and yet … the haiku works, so perhaps the ‘rules’ are just for we beginners?
I like the way you’ve developed the perspective in this poem, it’s seems to me extremely well constructed and very moving. Including the dedication. But it’s so traumatic it makes me want to escape into a world of fantasy… which is what I’m about to do.
Thank you, Alicia—I hope it was happy-ending Fantasy then, not GRRM, say, who can be fairly grim.:) (Great though.)
made me think of 9-11 over here in the states as well as all the disaster victims around the world right now. wonderful
Sharon, I think there is a universality to all these events that speak to our shared humanity and I am glad if the poem has captured even a little of that …
Wow. This is …… powerful.
Thank you for writing it.
Jan—thank you for enjoying it and saying so.
The first line of this is perfect in the way it sets up the rest of the poem. (I have to say though, I was there for the Wahine storm, too. Not as a passenger, but I did get to experience the wildness of the weather, and watch the ship go down from my living room window overlooking the harbour).
Thank you, re the first line, Catherine—praise indeed, given how much I admire your poetry. Watching the Wahine go down though, that must have been ‘something else.’ Were you old enough to be aware that people were drowning, or was it all at armslength emotionally?