Friday, August 28, 2015

A Room of My Own: Rooftop Tanka

written on the day before the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina

on the rooftop
a line of black women
frantically
waving their hands ...
a summer dream turns white


Note: Below is my another poem about Katrina, titled "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job," which was first published here:

debris scattered
here and there
an old man playing blues

It is not just the levees that break... the smell breaks away... from the skin when a boy is pulled out of the waters. The waters that come and stand ... still with the bodies of black people, of my people... she says, her voice breaking.

a green doghouse
with FEMA on its roof
lower ninth ward at dusk

(Note: The title comes from George W. Bush's comment on Katrina relief work done by Michael DeWayne Brown, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Director. My haibun is inspired by Spike Lee's 2006 award-winning documentary, titled When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts)

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