Let Us Build a City of God...

And in one awful moment Katrina crashed onto our shore,
amidst so many moments of madness and metaphor.
Revealing exploitation, corruption, and neglect,
illuminating, for all to see, the depth of disrespect.

Our abandonment of children with seeming disregard,
our brothers and our sisters, completely caught off guard.
Inconsolable with grief, they cling to shattered lives,
to children, friends, and strangers, to husbands and to wives.

To memories of their city, destroyed and so it seems,
one built upon false promises, neglected hopes and dreams.
Upon the backs, blood, sweat, and tears of those we left behind,
upon those missing from our midst, who we have yet to find.

And long before the storm did surge, heartbreak beyond compare,
a flood of devastation, of poverty...despair...
Reflecting our true nature, one nation under God,
illuminating, for all to see, an insincere façade.

And with the levee finally broken
God help us say what must be spoken.
We were neglectful and indifferent, distracted by our greed.
We should have been attentive and not blind to those in need.

From this time forth no more excuses
for our neglect and gross abuses.
This tragedy, our legacy, is our collective shame.
We are forever, utterly, inexcusably to blame.

So to the victims of our ignorance,
of our apathy and indifference,
to whom we gave no bright tomorrow,
mere words cannot express our sorrow.

Yet unforgiven we remain and will forever be,
without amends and heartfelt, sincere apology
of words and deeds that, as a nation, we must now relay.
For only through forgiveness, can we together say…

"Let us build the city of God.
May our tears be turned in to dancing!
For the Lord, our Light and our Love,
has turned the night in to day!"

Magen David Adom Palestine Red Crescent Society American Red Cross