How About That Tsunami

Originally posted 12/28/2004.   I used to write poems “ripped from the headlines” on occasion.  Most served their purpose — awareness, outrage, release of pressure, etc. — in their moment, while not having much staying power.  I thought this one deserved a second shot.

All day a stream of co-workers have come
to the world map on my cubicle wall,
coming to look for the place where it all happened.

Should I be surprised that on at least five occasions
I’ve had to point at the Indian Ocean
and then do a quick finger tour around the rim?

Or should I be heartened that at least
they came by to look? Or that they even knew
the map was here? It’s evidence, after all, that

the wave in fact reached beyond Aceh, that the wave
hit everything,  though not everything
got wet enough for everyone to feel it.

Here, we use money like paper towels
to keep the damp out, and already we’re bundling up
wads of it to ship overseas and make it all go away.

It’s possible that some come by
because they at least want to see
where their money is going.

“How about that tsunami?” “That one in Indonesia?” 
“Yeah, that one.” “I know!  That sucks.”
“Hey, can we look at your map? I wanna see where it happened.”

I wish I knew if I should cry
or just keep going back to the wall
to point it out again:

here is Phuket, here Aceh,
here Sri Lanka, here Tamil Nadu,
here Pondicherry, here Chennai.

Here is Myanmar, which so far
has been silent. Here we are
in the United States,

and here is everyone else.