Erasure & Found Poem from "On Photography By Teju Cole in april 16th new york times magazine
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You were The fast moving disaster of a tsunami added to the slow motion disaster of a nuclear calamity
Towns flooded Infrastructure wrecked Forests splintered more than 15,000 people dead. earthquake cut off my external power supply Floodwaters damaged my backup generators Disabled it's cooling system Overheating ensued Fuel in three reactor cores melted Releasing radiation
Everyone saw The water coming in The roads swept away Towns and harbors destroyed
Extensive documentary work was undertaken by photographers Of the ruins, Debris, Cleanup and relief operations
The gut-wrentching scale of destruction The professionalism of the emergency crews The fortitude of the survivers
The extreme uncertainty I feel in our current political moment helps me understand for the first time the curious twinship of mourning and premonition.
Information about the tragedy Sorrow for the suffering it caused Gratitude for the work that makes sorrow visible Foreboding about the future.
An alert flashes your phone Something terrible has happened Far away, a flood, an airstrike, Soon, there's footage of people picking through wreckage what used to be their homes
It is easy to pity them Difficult to imagine this will be you Suddenly bereft of a solid place in the world.
Listening to anything that touches on the sublime makes me apprehensive.
Like The silence that greets us waking in the middle of the night