Mangkhut and Maria
It was different this time.
The wind was low like it was crawling
Robert Tumaneg said in Luzon to a newspaper reporter.
It shook the earth like an earthquake.
Imagine
wind, come to rob you of things
fresh and powerful, like the metallic tang of a loved one
after an adrenaline shot.
When everything is still,
half a world away
hot stagnant soup of air refuses to move
all the energy being elsewhere
you rotting inside your house
one harassing mosquito
visiting bright venom under your skin all night
the moon half full of everything.
Empathy is nearly impossible then
if it means true understanding because
terrible wind crawling under your house
is not a thing to understand
when nothing even rumples your newspaper.
The wind is everything when it is that.
The rivers demanded the course they used to have
Chemi Rosado said about Maria
at an art opening in the desert
a universe away from the island.
Bent palms brown water
overflowing feces
dead pigs
people carrying each other from houses
mudslides collapsed mines
electrical wires
pruned fingers and toes
bloated wood
Shipwreck.
These are words that the imagination can wrap around.
But not the constant terror of the wind.
When the wind is like that
it is not a thing for thinking about
it is only everything.
Things were different this time.