estimates are that it will take at least two months for people to return

to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina's devastation, with full recovery

to be measured in years.

    my sister lives in La Place, just  west of New Orleans.  at the

moment, I-10 north of her home is under water, so we fear the

worst for her house.  she has been riding the storm in northern

Louisiana.

   my wife and i love New Orleans, and have been there many times.

these are some images from happier times:

Mardi Gras, 2004: Looking at downtown from the French Quarter

St. Louis Cahedral, one of approximately 60 basilicas in the U.S.

      i hope that the people of New Orleans find hope and strength in

these dificult times, and i know they will, and that they will rebuild their

beautiful city, and that Mardi Gras will be celebrated there again soon.

     the best thing to do to help is give money (which can then be used

locally for whatever needs are greater).  these are two excellent

organizations through which to do it:

http://www.redcross.org/

http://www.salvationarmyusa.org/

Hurricane Hits New Orleans

  by Andres Rojas (c) 2005

A hurricane is not a symbol.

Oshun doesn't have to visit.

Shango need not promise doom.

Wind moving at one hundred and fity knots

is just wind, and will do well.  

It's a fist, a moving wall of wrath,

a continent pushing its weight upon another,

an army marching with smallpox and gunpowder

at their fore, coffins washed out of the ground.

Nature does not need gods to do its damage.

Nor do men.  Men need gods to keep them safe.

At which they fail, miserably, and sure.

The dead float in dark waters, unscrutable

as fate.  The living cling to a new life,

forced upon them by the whims of oceans.

There is no meaning in a hurricane.

It is water, wind, heat, rain, and waves.

If we can talk about it, we've survived,

and talk we do, in a new tongue

imposed upon us, a new dress of debris,

half-burrying the old, for now, for a short while.