“I see so many twinned images each day;
one of life, one of death;
one of happiness, one of such sorrow.
So similar, so deadly different.
May there be good for those who are safe;
may there be good for those who are not.
May we who are disappointed idealists
Turn away from the specifics
of incessant accusations,
and instead turn toward simply clothing
with such love
whatever naked soul
stands right within our reach.”
cpe
__________
CODA
There will many months work ahead, the magnitude of such great upheaval cannot be grasped except story by story, and there will be hundreds of thousands of stories here behind the second image here, which is a worker in Haiti clearing a house of those who have died. Bodies become toxic, and when there are so many dead all at once, the gathering of bodies can become, for many, utilitarian, as they are racing a clock to clear and disinfect burgeoning bacteria that can infect the injured living through airborne and material contact with the long dead or the very ground or floor where the dead began to deteriorate. Large mass graves have been effected in Haiti, and more are being dug.