Haunted and the dead are not yet gone.
Feet and timber tumbled in fabric and wires,
Jut out the gaping hole
A wall ripped away,
Pieces and parts of a world, a life and its dying
Exposed.
The lower 9th ward is rotten with death,
Reeking of poverty, of quiet screaming years
Before the waters rose
Before the children climbed to the attic
To punch out holes to the sky.
September 7, 2005
New Orleans, 9th Ward
-Emilie Parry
[I wrote this poem while working in response and recovery following the impacts of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana and Mississippi. I was working at the Deputy Director of Oxfam America's Humanitarian Department at the time.]
[I wrote this poem while working in response and recovery following the impacts of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana and Mississippi. I was working at the Deputy Director of Oxfam America's Humanitarian Department at the time.]
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