Katrina Poem

A year ago (late August 2005), Hurricane Katrina exposed the "black" underbelly of America's racial politics. Here is the poem I wrote as a tribute to Niyi Osundare, Nigerian poet and academic, and survivor of the disaster. The poem first appeared in Sable Litmag Issue 7 (2005), and was read by Kadija Sesay at a PEN regional conference in Ghana (2nd - 5th December, 2005).

NEW ORLEANS IS A BOWL OF WATER
for Niyi Osundare

I
TheUnitedStates warns
That melanin predisposes carriers
To bouts of violent looting.

II
New Orleans is a bowl of water
Tinged with the dark
Of melanin

We sit on the roof.
Downstairs, water makes herself
At home.

We are not in the mood
For visitors.
The visitor is not in the mood

To return home. There is no home.
Home is a bandage of water
Swollen with the pus of flood -

Water terrifying itself.
Survival is an Egg.
Did those bifocals escape

With the bard. The papers didn't.
But the poems they hold
Are waterproof, created to bob

Their way to reckoning.
The Bard owns the last Word.
The last Word is not an Egg.

(c) 2005