January 19, 2010

white-out

It was as if someone had changed the channel
from placid vista into television static.
For a second, all I saw was blindness, a sudden jumble
that erased the swaying trees, the ski trails slick
from that day’s chairlift offspring. Even the guideposts
of the highway were gone. I realize I could be talking
about anything - the shatter of any unsuspecting scene - last weeks’ 
earthquake crumbling Port-au-Prince, a family’s rapid cracking,
a body’s unsanctioned failure. In the middle of each chaos,
I clung only to these words: you, me, us.