Katrina Blanket...
A flag is many things to many people. In the aftermath of Katrina this blanket of the American flag is her comfort. Little did she know that help wasn’t on the way. An old woman now…probably worked hard all of her life as someone’s maid or housekeeper. She had old age to look forward to and a country that offered its citizens a pension for their old years. Of course it isn’t enough for a mouse to subsist on…but no matter. This is America…where she has freedom and democracy. This is America… where her people are disenfranchised from what the Constitution equally bestowed upon its nation’s people.
This is America where the haves have it all. They have food and water…they have toilets and beds…they have clean clothes and the comfort of closing their doors at night and locking out the world. They cloak themselves in their flags and bake-sales for their churches…cloak themselves in the knowledge that they are on the right side of freedom and democracy. They cloak themselves into believing in an administration that bought and sold them. They have thrown the cloak over their head and will not look out.
So…this old woman seeking refuge under this blanket sits there waiting for what will not come. The America she trusted and loved isn’t coming to her aid. She is being left out in the heat of the day and the cool of the night…for days and nights to come. All around her are babies and children that she wishes she could get out of her chair to help…they’re babies for goodness sakes…they need HER help. She gets tired. She gets hungry…and she knows she’ll eventually soil herself. Where is America? These old folks and children will die if we don’t get some help here she says. She wraps the flag blanket closer…it’s becoming night again…and she waits another night for her America that she worked all her life for…facing the night in her chair again… cloaked in her blanket flag of America. The America that has assured her freedom and democracy.
cross-posted from September 4, 2005 I take this out each year to remember better that which I would like to forget.
Labels: broken promises, death, FEMA, flooding, Katrina disaster, New Orleans, stranded people
