Weathering the Walk: After a Typhoon

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It is difficult to walk knee deep in debris

Arriving after a super storm, imagining what was, seeing what is left

The littered land, no – the obliterated land

Leveled, uneven, colorless, open-wounded earth

Toppled trees like thousands of arrows released from the sky

Bodies line what might be roads, no one walking

Bodies float as water takes a new course, no one wading

The forecast for Haiyan was serious, the outcome worse

A knock-out punch to the Philippines

In a chapel, bodies wrapped in blankets – feet exposed

A black cross was silent testament to the catastrophe

Survivors screaming to set foot in a makeshift hospital

A child was born in the rubble, new hope

The un-severed umbilical cord of family abroad, a life blood

Thank God for mercy flights

 

Key words rearranged from articles:

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2013/dec/03/typhoon-haiyan-bullit-marquez-in-pictures

http://www.theguardian.com/world/photography-blog/2013/dec/03/bullit-marquez-typhoon-haiyan-philippines

 Photo Source:

https://www.google.com/images?hl=en&q=typhoon+haiyan+bullit+marquez+AP&gbv=2&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ei=WmJcU8SOBM7YyAHj0oHgCA&ved=0CBsQsAQ

 

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Weathering the Walk: On the Heels of a Volcano

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It is difficult to walk, when instinct screams ‘flee’

Smoke stalks; poisonous gas is in pursuit.

A mountain’s eruption consumes a village in North Sumatra

Indonesia is on its knees again.

Villagers fly on their feet to safer ground,

Home and farm and friends are behind the ash veil

Levels below the fiery lava.

Rural roads, blocked arteries of this heartland,

Pound with running, escaping, burning feet.

 

Key words rearranged from article and source of photo:

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/02/02/14-dead-3-injured-mt-sinabung-erupts.html

 

Hanging onto Slim Hope…Feet in the Air

 

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After a monsoon in 2013, a boy dangled from a power line before diving into an overflowing Ganges River.  Allahabad, India

 

http://www.philipchircop.com/post/71403192364/images-from-2013-a-boy-dangling-allahabad

Photo: Sanjay Kanojia/Agence France-Presse, Getty Images, Source:New York Times

 

See also:   http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2346033/India-Floods-2013-Rescuers-pull-bodies-River-Ganges-mud-left-landslides-death-toll-monsoon-flooding-northern-India-rises-nearly-600.html