The devastation
Was shocking.
Made disaster movies look
All the more unreal.
Actuality
Is meant to be infinitely
More frightening and tragic.
But the wide angle
Helicopter view
Of the (un)natural quiet gentle onslaught
Looks like a child’s play puddle
Less CGed and more muddied
The brown mass rolls across
A miniature landscape.
People are puny ants.
Cars are tiny toys.
Unaware until the very last moment
Or aware but it is too late
Everyone, everything is swept away
Reluctantly with the front.
Bridges
Are supposed to be
Over water
Not in.
Houses float down streets like boats
And boats will sit far inland like houses.
A Nuclear power station
Is not supposed to fail
And explode like a fire cracker.
Postmodern and simulating
The world is now seen
Through the colourbox
Like characters
In a soap opera
Unaffecting.
The quake, tsunami and accident
Seem to exist
Only in the images of our memories
Like some far away fictional place
Of the past or future,
And not of the suffering or joy
Of the here-and-now.
In memory of the 18,500 who died or are missing, and thoughts to the 35,000 who survived and are displaced.
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