Storm Front

Tomorrow
after our war
clouds stream
out of the nor’east,
seagulls fleeing
before the wind—
a voice on the radio
talks about what it means
to be . . . human, beating
against each other, asks
who will pick up
all the shards, piece
together the joins, dark
fractures enclosing
the whole.

© Helen Lowe

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I wrote this poem in 2009, but it seemed very apposite to the earthquake and its aftermath that we have been experiencing here in Christchurch over the past week—and because today is Tuesday, that means there must be a Tuesday Poem.

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To enjoy more Tuesday Poems go to the Tuesday Poem Blog hub here or click on the Quill icon in the sidebar.

'Re-sculpted' driveway with the major fault running across, but a close look at the garage door reveals that the ground in front is now higher than the base of the door

Yesterday, 27 February, we finally completed the last of the serious liquefaction clearance. There is still a lot of finishing off to be done, but the major part of the material that was clogging the driveway, garage and surrounds to the house has been removed—and what can now be seen is interesting, to say the least. The driveway is no longer a level length of asphalt, but now boasts interesting landscape features in the form of ‘escarpments’ and ‘rising ground’.

Subsidence---because there's nothing underneath.

Even more interesting are the sunken bricks in the path. When you peer through the gap you realise that there’s nothing there, because all the sub-surface material has been forced out.

Having got to this stage, I have resolved to give myself tomorrow to rest—which I basically have not done for the past six days—and decide on ‘what next’. There are still an awful lot of people in need out there, and having received so much help myself I feel that it is important to help others. It is just a matter of deciding what is the most effective way to do that.

Since February 22, I have felt incredibly fortunate in the strength of the community around me (as described in the past few posts.)  But I am starting to hear stories that make me realise that even with all the liquefaction, we have still been incredibly fortunate compared to suburbs where homes have been flooded, (tile) roofs lost, windows and masonry has exploded, and where homes, vehicles and people have  been trapped by subsidence.

A phrase we have been hearing a lot, especially about the central city, is that it is like a war zone. Together with reports of the devastation in other suburbs, this got me thinking about the difference between such a massive natural disaster and the devastation caused by an actual war. Aside from the obvious causal difference and the fact that no one (so far anyway) has been shooting at anyone else, it occurs to me that the major difference with a natural disaster, even of this magnitude, is the expectation that eventually, rescue will come. Somewhere out there, help is on its way.

Over the past six days, I have felt that it was incredibly important to get on and do what I could myself—but I believe it is a tribute to our NZ society that I have never doubted for a moment that official help would arrive (even beyond the amazing way in which friends and neighbours have been right there from the beginning.)  And my confidence has proven to be well founded. Even given the devastation in the central area, a council team was on our street clearing debris on Day 4. By Day 6, representatives of the EQC  (Earthquake Commission) were going door to door to assess need in the area. And tonight, even as I write this, I can hear machinery working on the main road, beginning the process of fixing one or other of the essential services.

So like a war zone, perhaps, but not a war zone simply because the infrastructure of a functioning society is there. We do have each other’s backs at the personal, community and national level, and I hope that sense of working together will endure once we move past the crisis phase and into recovery—a process that I suspect is going to take years, not months, and will be very tough with so many homes and businesses (and by implication jobs/livelihoods) lost and so much rebuilding to do. And sometimes it is that long haul, once the adrenaline has stopped pumping, that is the greatest challenge—but one I believe that we can meet if we continue to support each other.

Still digging out---& it's deep

Today was another day of digging, my fourth in a row so far and it would be fair to say that I’m knackered. But we’re close, I think, to completing as much as we can readily do on the digging front.

Some human stories that have arisen recently—still from the ‘burbs, but just to give a little bit of the picture beyond digging out mud—include:

• My neighbour Paul (the same Paul who flagged down the digger to clear out my driveway yesterday) met a woman wandering along the road who as he put it “looked almost wild.” She had been shut out from her work immediately following the quake (this happened a lot where buildings were unsafe to return to) but her handbag, with her car keys, wallet etc was locked inside. So she had no money, no cards, no transport and also no water and very little food. Paul took her back to his home, where he and his wife gave her a meal, water to take away with her and  $200 to tide her over. I am sure things like this are happening all over the city right now, but this is the story I know, so I’m putting my hands together right now for Paul and his wife, Tina.
• A sadder story is that of friends who own a neighbourhood cafe—Piccolo, the ‘best little coffee shop in the world’ for all the locals that frequented it. Forced to close for 6 weeks after the last earthquake, things were really starting to hum again. But when I walked down to see how they had fared this time, my friend Jackie said simply, “It’s over.” The building and their business both gone in the brief fierce seconds of the 6.3 earthquake.

Very small stories compared to the major drama playing out within the cordoned-off central area of the city: a drama of both collapsing and exploding buildings as the earthquake struck; of people who had to have limbs amputated to pull them clear of building ruins and of others being crushed in the street by falling masonry; of too many people still missing and the death toll climbing with every day that passes. These are the big stories, the ones you will see in your media coverage, but all the time the smaller events are also playing out—a very minor part of the whole earthquake drama, perhaps, but still huge for the people caught up in them.

I am too tired tonight, after 3 days of pretty much digging out sand and mud all day, to write a lot, but I thought that a few photos might tell their own stories.

This first one is of sand (it looks like mud but it is sand) and water outside my back door, shortly after the quake–it took about  a minute to get from nothing to this. To get an idea of the depth of sand, note the level against the pots.

This effect extended all down our driveway, through our garage and around a fair portion of our back lawn. The second photo shows the back lawn area; once gain, note the level against the pots.

Digging out the driveway

Today, with the help of 17 people in total—not all at the same time, but during the course of the day—three of whom were complete strangers who just walked in off the street to help out, we managed to clear the garage, the affected parts of the back lawn and a few other garden hotspots, and the driveway. The driveway was probably the worst affected area though, with the liquefacted material up to a foot deep in places. We definitely couldn’t have made the progress we did if a neighbour, Paul, hadn’t spotted a man on a digger helping another resident of the street and asked him “to come down to Helen’s next.”

Pitching in: the barrow & spade brigade

The man on the digger, Mark, turned out to be another resident of the street—it’s quite  a long street and we’re at opposite ends, so didn’t know each other, but suffice it to say that I now owe him some beer. The digger, in a couple of hours, took care of what it would have taken the wheelbarrow and spade team a couple of days to get through.  So three cheers for Mark and the digger, and another three for Paul for asking him to help me out.

But seriously, I am just so grateful to everyone of the seventeen who turned up today, from my friend Irene, and also her tween daughter,

The back lawn: dug clear today

Petra, and her friend Kayla, who turned up first and wielded spades to great effect in the garage; the three walk-ins; my friend Joff who cycled from the far side of town to help dig for the second day in a row; my neighbours and friends Tina and Susie, and their families and friends, who all turned up to help in such numbers and to such great effect.

Cleaning up the street

The other great news was that a council team turned up today to clear all the stockpiled material on the street—we know they’re getting round everyone as fast as they can, and there are a whole city of streets to be done, but it was really great to see them.

And tired or not, this turned out to be quite a long post, after all—but how could I not acknowledge so many who helped me turn what I hope will prove to be the clean-up corner today?

Firstly , thank you all so much for your comments and support. I am reading all your texts (although these are still sometimes intermittent in their arrival) and emails and replying as much as I can, but there is so much to do here that I may not be able to reply to everyone all at once. But I should get there ‘in time’–and meanwhile, please be assured that all your thoughts and best wishes are very much appreciated.

In terms of what is happening ‘on the ground’, I realised this morning that I was not 100% simply because I found it very hard to multitask in terms of processing what needed to happen next—and that is definitely not usual for me. So it may have been a symptom of delayed shock, given the cumulation of events: the earthquake followed quickly by the liquefaction, then the constant aftershocks and not knowing what had happened to “your people”—but knowing that this quake, given both its violence and the time of day, had to be bad.

You all know just how bad, through the media, but at a  personal level, the liquefaction—the mix of sand and water that gets forced out of the ground and then settles into a black sludge (‘warning: may contain sewage’)—is  the biggest issue for us at this stage. I have spent the last two days digging out around this house, as well as the stormwater drains on the street, and the job is far from done. But I was fortunate today to have the help of four fantasic friends (one of them my cousin, but also very much a friend-in-need) and it really made a huge difference to what we got done. Basically we dug and shifted the liquefacted material for around seven hours—and will be out there and at it again tomorrow.

We are still without water and sewer, so today was also the day in which friends  rallied around—my cousin brought water and a whole raft of essential supplies, as  well as helping with the digging, and a SpecFicNZ friend, Wen Baragrey, and her family were running in water and other supplies from their (non-earthquaked) base in Rangiora: needless to say, although we had water enough for 3-4 days, as per the survival pack guide, these very generous deliveries really took the edge off the immediate water situation.

Friends from further afield, in both Auckland and Wellington, are also sending care packages that we hope will get through (the current priority is medical supplies)—and no small ‘care’ either, but very necessary items such as chemical toilets, antiseptic handwashes and ‘special’ food for the cat.

The cat, needless to say, has been very freaked by the whole business. He has not run away as so many cats did in September, but he has spent the majority of the last three days hiding in his “safe place”, which is the bottom of the wardrobe—right at the back where he is hard to see unless you know to really look.

And that’s us—here; hugely grateful for all the support we’re getting, but still with a whole lot of work yet to do. In terms of what tomorrow brings—this will pretty much be more digging, with hopes that the rain stays away.

Dear friends,

As many of you may be aware from the news media, my home city of Christchurch has been hit by a second major earthquake, following the one on September 4 last year. Although  7.1 in magnitude that earthquake resulted in no loss of life or major injury, although there was building and infrastructure damage.  This time we have not been so lucky, as although 6.3 in magnitude this earthquake was both shallower and more closely centred to the city and has done far greater damage. Given its timing in the middle of a working day, it has also resulted in major loss of life with 75 officially declared dead and 300 missing.

My personal situation is that both I and my partner are alive and uninjured and all the friends and neighbours I have heard from are similarly placed. But I already know of many who have lost their homes and businesses, and infrastructure throughout the city is severely compromised.

Our living situation is that our house appears to be relatively ok, although it has sustained what I hope will prove to be minor/fixable structural damage. We have, however, sustained considerable damage to the section in the form of cracking and buckling of paved surfaces and widespread “liquefaction”, where water and sand flood up through the ground and settle as a black slick/sludge. The sludge may also contain sewage where pipes rupture—which I believe to have almost certainly been the case in Christchurch. Not surprisingly, at present we have neither sewer nor potable water and the power has only just come back on. Telephone services are also intermittent.

I and many like me across Chriscthurch are now in the position of having to dig the liquefaction out, both on our own properties and as much as possible in the surrounding streets, as well as tidy up damage within houses.

This is the first time I have been able to access the blog since the earthquake occurred at 1 pm approximately on Tuesday, but I hope that I will be in a position to post more updates from now on. But if not, I will post again as soon as the situation allows.

splitting pine
I smell
the whole forest

.

(c) Nick Williamson

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Published in The Whole Forest, Sudden Valley Press, 2001

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Haiku are an enormously popular contemporary poetry form, so much so that the NZ Poetry Society has a separate HaikuNZ page on its website, the only poetry form in NZ to receive such distinctive treatment. Perhaps, of the many poetic forms, it is the only one that has its own thriving organisational world–which haiku (and the related forms of tanka, haibun etc) definitely does.

But amidst the huge numbers of haiku being penned in NZ today, every now and then you read one that really stands out from the crowd and encapsulates the art: spare, without resorting to (the forbidden) imagery, simile or metaphor; “concrete”, i.e. grounded in the reality of “the moment, now”; and leaping, from encapsulation of the small—that moment of splitting pine for firewood—to the “whole forest.”  Haiku, the way the form is meant to be (imho) …

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About Nick Williamson: Nick is a Christchurch-based poet who had a sabbatical from poetry following publication of The Whole Forest in 2001. He has recently completed the creative writing programme at The Hagley Writers’ Institute and was a guest poet at last year’s Canterbury Poets’ Collective Autumn Reading Series, appearing with Michele Leggott and Helen Lowe (that’s me, ok  😉 ). Nick was Commended in the 2010 NZ Poetry Society International Poetry Comptition and Highly Commended in the Bravado Poetry Competition 2009. His work has appeared in a range of literary journals and anthologies.

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To enjoy more Tuesday Poems go to the Tuesday Poem Blog hub here or click on the Quill icon in the sidebar.

And although it looks pretty much the same as the AU/NZ cover, there are some subtle differences: the writing has been lightened from the AU/NZ silver-gray to the UK creamy-gold, the spine treatment is quite different and this cover also has the “dagger and reversed crescent” device on both front and back. Very cool! Apparently it’s going to come out as a large format trade paperback as well, so I am very much looking forward to seeing that.

Anyway—here you are!

UK (Orbit) Cover

And, of course, still on the TBR table: that’s (in alphabetical order by author) Daniel Abraham’s “A Betrayal in Winter”, the second in his The Long Price quartet; Justin Cronin’s The Passage; and Ian McDonald’s River of Gods. The fact that these books are still on the table is no reflection on my level of interest in them—I am very interested in all of them, but you know, it all comes down to the old maxim: ‘so many books, so little time.’ [Sigh.]

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Speaking of not making much progress, I am still reading Muriel Barbery’s The Elegance of the Hedgehog. You may recall that last week I was only a short way into the book and was  feeling a little unsure about it, despite Hedgehog having spent a year on the NYT best seller list, as well all as the critical plaudits that have been lavished on it. Well, I am still a little ‘unsure’, but I am a lot further into the book—only about a quarter left to go by my reckoning—and also more “into it” (ie the story) as a reader. There are definitely parts that I am really enjoying. The uncertainty arises because Hedgehog also contains chapters in which characters reflect, in a very high minded way, on Life, Philosophy and Art–which to be honest, I find just a tad pretentious. But—but, ‘gentle readers’, I also nurture a suspicion that the author may, just may, be playing with my mind, so I am reserving judgment on the point of pretentiousness or otherwise until I’ve finished the book, which I hope to do this week. Don’t get me wrong though, even if I do finally check that “a tad prententious” box, I still think it is well worth a read.

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Plus “Just Arrived”: (wildfire excitement!)

From Gollancz (Hachette)—Archangels’ Consort by Nalini Singh: this is the third in NYT best-selling author, Nalini Singh’s Guild Hunter series; the genre is Paranormal Romance and you may recall that I read the first-in-series, Angel’s Blood last year and interviewed Nalini for Women on Air, Plains 96.9 FM;

From Auckland Univeristy Press—AUP New Poets 4 featuring Harry Jones, Erin Scudder & Chris Tse. I don’t “know” any of these poets so I am really looking forward to becoming acquainted with their work.

… because I am working on my book.

Yesterday I reflected on bottom lines and the hard realities that underlie being a writer—the same, in fact, that underpin any business, from the corner dairy to governments, although the perception of the writing life is frequently more idealised and romantic. I will talk more about this, but not today, because today I am happy because I am writing my book.

If you’ve read recent posts you may feel I have got the “writing” part a little wrong, because I have been talking about the fact that I am currently editing The Gathering of the Lost, the second book in The Wall of Night series. But editing, you see, is still writing. Even picking up the typos and grammatical errors is part of getting the story right, but that’s really copy- or proof editing. Nuts and bolts stuff.What the edit is about, for me anyway, is doing your utmost to make your story ‘sing.’ You already have your characters and the arc of your story, the action of the plot and the motivations and mechanations of your characters.

When you go through the manuscript again, you have the opportunity to give all those aspects of the story more depth: to add shading and nuance to your characters; to make sure you’ve got the pacing and sequencing of your action ‘spot on’; to be sure that you’ve foreshadowed everything that needs foreshadowing, even if the resolution is not necessarily in this book, but perhaps in the third or even the fourth in the series.

So for me, editing is still a very creative process and I love both the sheer creativity and the sense of “making”, but also that feeling (to—very loosely—paraphrase Sam Gamgee in the second Lord of the Rings film; I don’t think the lines appear in the book) that you have the opportunity to put something good into this world. (I think Sam said something like that you ” … have to believe that there’s some good in this world.”)

And when I’m doing that, everything else falls away and I really do feel like I’m the right person in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing.

Even if I know that at some stage I’ll have to put down my pen again and keep a weather eye on those bottom lines.