A mother can do nothing
to stop a ten-foot wave.
She cannot get to Brooklyn
fast enough. In a stalled car,
on a battered island, she can't
get to promised higher ground
because of the water.
The water comes. The water,
it comes and comes and comes,
the water, always comes, pulling.
It tugs, taking sons from her.
What is this woman's love
against a strong storm's surge
becomes a story that holds
spellbound a room on Capitol Hill.
Two years and four, they were,
counting for more than the seconds
the unhanding took, water wanting
what a mother could not not let go.
On Father Capodanno Boulevard
the van, abandoned, held; a tree
meant water didn't take it.
Today, a single white coffin contains.
Far away, in Ireland, another island,
grandparents in the town of Portnoo,
in County Donegal, retain no words
to explain boys in a wooded marsh,
a father on duty at the time, a mother
reaching, even now, for higher ground.
© 2012 Maureen E. Doallas
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This poem is inspired by the deaths of two brothers, ages 2 and 4, on Staten Island during Hurricane Sandy. News stories about the children include the following:
Raymond Hernandez, "Teary-Eyed, Gillibrand Tells Senators of 2 Boy's Deaths in Storms", City Room Blog, The New York Times, November 29, 2012
Ken Paulsen, "Funeral for 2 Staten Island Brothers, Victims of Hurricane Sandy", Staten Island Advance, November 9, 2012
Julia Papa, "Funeral Friday for 2 Brothers Swept Away During Sandy Surge on Staten Island", CBS New York, November 9, 2012
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23 comments:
Maureen this is a poem I wish I'd written. You did it, you captured it, you captured it all.
So amazing, so beautiful, so wonderfully presented. Just wow, really loved this one.
You carried this story into my heart in a way no newscast has done. Oh! The heart breaks. Masterful, Maureen. Masterful.
this is very sensitively written maureen...brought me to tears..
that is absolutely brilliant. touching and with such little use of words. you really get so much emotion in here, really give us the feeling of the tragedy.
ugh...its hard....the death of children is so sad...and i guess the sad truth as well is that we as parents can not protect them from everything...
Maureen, the spareness of your words really adds to the emptiness that the loss of children must leave in a family's hearts. This is what poetry is supposed to be about.
Maureen, the sorrow in your poem is bottomless
Wow. This put a lump in my throat and a fist around my heart. A sad tale, told too well. Excellent write.
I remember hearing this story when it happened, your words are a fine tribute to the pain that mother must have felt.
after this last week of feeling the tug and lift of waves...i can easily imagine not being able to hold on.
youve captured sorrow very beautifully here
Maureen you express this expansive sorrow with deep compassion.
Few things, we tend to think, are stronger than a mother's love. The final image of the mother still reaching (forever reaching) will haunt me.
*sorrow* beautifully expressed
This made me cry...
So many sad stories from Sandy. This one especially.
Such an eloquent elegy. It is hauntingly beautiful. Thank you!
...your poem flows softly and smoothly for anyone not easily love... yet filled of bitter memories... excellent... smiles...
So well written ... the feelings tangible.
Feeling that deep ache here. Just broken. Broken. The hard work of grief--the hard work of a mother...who can bear this burden?
A poignant and careful write, deep with understanding. Well done.
Maureen this is a strong one. The emotion is authentic, powerfully-planted and transcends the twee or mawkish. Writing on tragedy can so easily go there. Instead, you pull. With words, with phrases, with a tightly-structured free verse that boasts just the right amount of aural device. Bravo.
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