VI. The Culture of Life

With a low, ominous rumble, the motorcade arrived at twilight,
Mercenary soldiers quickly unloaded props for the miracle play.
Flood lights bathed the façade of an old church,
Until the cross on its very top seemed to hover in the air and glow

An excited producer surveyed the scene:
“Oh, it’s heated up. It’s going to print loud!” ⁶
“Cue Blacksnake One, ready, go!”

Caught in a surreal green light, jaw clenched and grinding, eyes shifting from side to side, words halted and stumbling:

“We must acknowledge…poverty” ⁷

Kept back behind barricades, a crowd of people strained towards the light,
But as soon as it began it was over.

The black metal fortress of his car disappeared down the street,
And all of the lights were turned off behind him as he left,

Huddled in darkness once again,
The weary crowd groaned and looked to the waning crescent moon
for tiny rations of light,
But that bone-thin hag of the fallow year
stirred her empty cauldron of despair.

Mounting the steps towards his airplane, he was now drenched in sweat.
Pausing briefly at the top,
he waved towards the dark, humid city
and moved quickly inside

Looking through the thick glass of his airplane window
to the flooded land far below,
Blacksnake One turned to his Mentor and blankly said:
           “Death…much of it…could have…sooner”

“Forget about it, it’s not your fault.
No one could have expected this,” soothed The Mentor,
“You believe in the culture of life.”

And the Black Snake slept peacefully in his giant airplane,
Curled up in a cradle of pale, sickly yellow, clouds

---

Notes:

⁶ “Oh, it’s heated up. It’s going to print loud!”>
“…Bobby DeServi and Scott Sforza were on hand as we drove up about 8 p.m. or so EDT handling last-minute details of the stagecraft. Bush will be lit with warm tungsten lighting, but the statue and cathedral will be illuminated with much brighter, brighter lights, along nothing like the candlepower that DeServi and Sforza used on Sept. 11, 2002, to light up the Statue of Liberty for Bush's speech in New York Harbor. Here's a quote from DeServi on the lit up cathedral: "Oh, it's heated up. It's going to print loud.”
- Elisabeth Bumiller NYT(From: Press.Releases@WhiteHouse.Gov POOL REPORT #4, 9/15/05)

⁷ “We must acknowledge…poverty”
President George Bush from a nationally televised speech in New Orleans on 9/15/05.

"...the lights were turned off behind him as he left"
“I am duty-bound to report the talk of the New Orleans warehouse district last night: there was rejoicing (well, there would have been without the curfew, but the few people I saw on the streets were excited) when the power came back on for blocks on end. Kevin Tibbles was positively jubilant on the live update edition of Nightly News that we fed to the West Coast. The mini-mart, long ago cleaned out by looters, was nonetheless bathed in light, including the empty, roped-off gas pumps. The motorcade route through the district was partially lit no more than 30 minutes before POTUS drove through. And yet last night, no more than an hour after the President departed, the lights went out. The entire area was plunged into total darkness again, to audible groans. It's enough to make some of the folks here who witnessed it... jump to certain conclusions.”
- NBC anchor Brian Williams

“No one could have expected this”
"He defended the federal government's response so far to the growing crisis amid urgent pleas for help from stranded victims. He said the breach of the levees that led to the submerging of much of New Orleans had not been anticipated."
Reuters story that summarized the statement made by George Bush on Good Morning America September 1, 2005

"culture of life"
“I think it's important to promote a culture of life…”
George Bush from the third Presidential debate 10/13/04.
Official Transcript