I. Behind the Razor Wire

Behind the razor wire,
Backhoes plow a deep and muddy furrow.
Secrets are being sown in the earth and covered over with silence.

Nervous soldiers swear and shift their guns.
At curfew in the desolate street
A wheelchair sits abandoned as it has been for days,
Its sad contents draped with a blanket.

Above it,
The face of a blue dog appears,
Floating forward, yellow eyes, begging:

“Help me! I am your mother’s spirit
“This gentle bank beneath the willow was my home
“In the dead of the year you brought me food

“There was a time you prayed here.

“Now that willow is upended
“Its roots torn and scattered on the wind,
“And the river is a waste of oily fire,

“Now your only prayer is to the Strong Father.”

The young soldier raised his weapon toward the ghost,
The tattoo of a black snake glistened with sweat on his huge bicep
His entire body was rigid, his eyes staring

“Don’t you remember your mother?”
“When I was a young girl, old John came to get me from school.
“He said: ‘Miss Flo Dee da flood’s a comin’ ‘s time to go!
“And he put me in a canoe and paddled us far away, to an island in a river.”

“Don’t you remember?”
“When you were young, you carved a crescent moon for me
“You made a spiral out of silver.
“In the land at the back of the North Wind there is a place for you,
“We could go there now and you would be forever at peace.”

The black snake twitched,
And shots boomed out across the dark, filthy waters.
Blue vapor snarled and curled in the dead branches of a sycamore tree
And the full, yellow moon brought the baying of stranded dogs.

Carefully, the soldier pulled back the blanket with the muzzle of his gun

There was no body beneath it.

---

Notes:

"razor wire"
Large parts of the disaster area were blocked off with razor wire.

"secrets are being sown..."
Kenyon International is a firm accused of hiding bodies in Iraq who were given a no bid contract to operate in the disaster area. Also, another firm that does a lot of contract work in Iraq, the Blackwater mercenaries were hired to provide “security” in New Orleans.

"blue dog"
The Blue Dog refers to the character that inspired the paintings of George Rodrigue. The Blue Dog is based on the loup-garu a werewolf or ghost dog of the bayou in Cajun legend.

"A wheelchair sits abandoned..."
The body in the abandoned wheelchair is partially a reference to Ethel Mayo Freeman who became an iconic symbol of the tragedy.

"Miss Flo Dee"
My grandmother who was rescued from a hurricane and flood near Lake Ponchartrain, Louisiana around 1915.

“…land at the back of the North Wind”
According to Robert Graves in his book The White Goddess this was a phrase used by Pindar to locate the land of the Hyperboreans and is also a Gaelic synonym for the Land of Death. The White Goddess in one of her manifestations has a “spiral” castle in this land that was usually situated on an island in a river.