{"id":3008,"date":"2012-12-03T23:46:58","date_gmt":"2012-12-03T23:46:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregglory.com\/wordpress\/?p=3008"},"modified":"2023-07-08T10:20:28","modified_gmt":"2023-07-08T10:20:28","slug":"part-four-a-reporter-on-the-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/posts\/part-four-a-reporter-on-the-road\/","title":{"rendered":"Part Four: A Reporter on the Road"},"content":{"rendered":"
\r\nGoing to view the storm damage--\r\nOn the doorknob,\r\nA single evergreen leaf.\r\n \r\nStepping outside....\r\nAfter the hurricane, only the grass\r\nLooks the same.\r\n<\/pre>\n
\nIt turns out, just by taking a few steps beyond my door there was no end to the incidents and adventures available in my own neighborhood.  Going down one street, trees had been felled by a troop of invisible lumberjacks, holding their deep roots up for the most minute inspection as if they were being robbed of their underpants.  Getting near a big evergreen that had gone over, peeling back as it had fallen a sinuous line of sod along the driveway’s asphalt edge like foil peeled back to reveal a meaty lasagna, the overwhelming smell was not of mud, despite the wet (nor of lasagna, despite the image)–the smell was of fresh dry loam and mossy roots–a sunny day on a broad fairway and a clear shot to a golden layup.  I was pinged back to warm June possibilities–and the busy nest of maggoty worms (or whatever they were exactly) seemed distressed to be so turned out of their summer home–and on such a prosaically rainy day too!\n<\/p>\n
\r\nAfter the storm's destruction,\r\nMy neighbor looks out from his doorway\r\nHolding a big broom.\r\n \r\nFinicky seagulls\r\nPillage bins of spoiled meat,\r\nDiscarding the lesser cuts.\r\n \r\nThis reminds me of a haiku by Joso, to wit:\r\nAmong blossoming cherries\r\nA woodpecker pecks--\r\nHunting for deadwood.\r\n \r\nThe long wooden fence\r\nTorn open by the storm--\r\nMust've been a gate\r\nIn another life.\r\n \r\nThrough a crack in the fence\r\n--A new shoot\r\nOf green laurel.\r\n<\/pre>\n
\nCrossing into Keyport, I stopped at the local WaWa, the only food outlet for miles with a generator, which allowed them to open their doors that day–cash only.  The only line was for coffee, caffeine being the mental health drug of choice among adult Americans.   And the line snaked through the whole building and out the door.  Regular or decaffeinated?   The theological debate in the line was fierce.\n<\/p>\n
\r\nWaiting for hot coffee\r\nA hundred pairs of muddy shoes\r\nFace one way.\r\n \r\nPeople pulled\r\nTo the WaWa, the wifi, the caffeine,\r\nAnd each other--\r\nBlack bees on a crowded sunflower.\r\n<\/pre>\n
\nIt was in this line that I got my first dose of stories.  A few shore residents had seen the actual storm surge make landfall, a green tyrant thirty feet tall, wearing a crown of white foamy thorns.  Tony, a naturalized American from Costa Rica, had watched from his second story apartment window as the “tsunami” poured though, pushing boats with abandon and hitting the bay side of Ye Olde Cottage Inne<\/em>, waiting for a beat of four seconds, and then bursting from the far side by the road, spilling the guts of the place out like mouthwash filled with dinner detritus, and leaving the once grand facade smiling toothlessly at the town like an idiot cousin.  There were a dozen or more stories, all told with a survivor’s relish, and the hot expectation of a daily fix of coffee.  When I stumbled through town a short while later, I saw what was left of the Inne;  I knew I was getting close by the small flotilla of French onion soup bowls that had been sent out nearly half a mile in every direction from the destruction.  Picking one of dozens up, it was still dry on the inside, and muddy on the bottom.\n<\/p>\n
\r\nWhere the weak reed rebounded\r\nA dragonfly hesitates--\r\nAfter the hurricane.\r\n \r\nKids touch the tacky sap--\r\nCounting aloud the cut-open rings\r\nOf hurricane trees.\r\n \r\nMist on the sea--\r\nJust where the hurricane came in,\r\nStorks float home.\r\n \r\nBright orange safety jackets\r\nMove over the wreckage in Keyport--\r\nI feel I am helping.\r\n<\/pre>\n
\nCrossing back out of Keyport, with acres of bay-blasted wreckage behind me (and acres of wind-wrestled wreckage before), I bumped into a reporter for the Star Ledger in front of Bob’s Hot Dog House.  Bob’s was squished flat as a runcible tophat–only the faded red painting of a hot dog survived as the fecund marshland unrolled behind the flattened trailer.  We kibitzed about the whole area, and she gave me some good details about what had happened in other areas of New Jersey, where the newspaper had sent out its fleet of note-taking snoops.\n<\/p>\n
\r\nA reporter on the road\r\nLifts stories from the locals,\r\nShaking gloved hands as she goes.\r\n \r\nThe hurricane crow\r\nDarts brilliantly about--\r\nDodging raindrops!\r\n \r\nIn the burnt-out house\r\n--Swung wide open--\r\nA perfect red door.\r\n \r\nPenitently,\r\nThrough the flood-busted churchdoor\r\n...A lost frog.\r\n \r\nThe Long Branch beach--\r\nAn ice cream sandwich\r\nLicked clean out!\r\n \r\nRibbon-painted boats,\r\nPiled like discarded kites\r\nDrawn by a single string.\r\n \r\nStorm-tossed boats\r\nJump playfully as dolphins--\r\nOver the bridge.\r\n \r\nLoud out of nowhere--\r\nOn top of an overturned boat,\r\nA wild sparrow!\r\n \r\nTheir sails like moth-wings,\r\nLittle boats pile up overnight--\r\nAttracted by the full moon!\r\n<\/pre>\n
\nLater in the day, as I toured a tree-decimated neighborhood littered with windfall and tangles of powerlines like the discarded ribbons from Christmas packages, I was able to take a surprisingly comfortable sunshine-nap in the topmost boughs of a downed evergreen tree.  When I woke up from my doze, I discovered that I had been joined by a stray cat curled up near my feet.  Good news always finds a friend, as they say.\n<\/p>\n
\r\nAfter so much hurricane worry--\r\nSleep seeps in anyway, at noon,\r\nUnder my eyelids.\r\n \r\nFollowing the disaster,\r\nMuddy footprints track back\r\nTo my doorstep.\r\n \r\nBroken spines,\r\nThese chainsawed cherrytrees--\r\nBones of the hurricane.\r\n \r\nWhole streets, houses too,\r\nPainted very minutely\r\nWith mud brushes.\r\n \r\nAll this mud!\r\nAnd still no butterfly\r\n....Nope....Not yet.\r\n \r\n*    *    *    *\r\nThe refreshing cool\r\nOf the water coming in\r\nWashes the feet\r\nOf the water going out.\r\n~~Ransetsu\r\n<\/pre>\n
\nThe poem above and the poem below go together.  Ransetsu takes the common conceit that “all things change,” and shows that these changes can be accepted with grace, with washing the feet of the new thing by the old thing; I think of a combo retirement-baptism party.  In Ransetsu’s verse, both the thing coming and the thing going are water–again the common conceit that “all things are one thing.”  I think his would be a great poem to carve at the cool water intake of a nuclear plant.  The second poem plays with a similar element of graceful acceptance of the changes the hurricane has made.\n<\/p>\n
\r\nTaking careful pains to wash\r\nHurricane tchotchkes in a puddle,\r\nI place them back in the mud.\r\n \r\nClearing the debris--\r\nChildren hold fallen shingles\r\nAnd look up.\r\n \r\nStill there--\r\nUnder a storm-tossed shingle--\r\nThe dewy grass.\r\n \r\nGrateful enough to make it through,\r\nThe whole sky looks\r\nLike one color.\r\n \r\nEvery town window reflects\r\nA world at sunset--\r\nDestroyed.\r\n \r\nWalking home at sunset,\r\nThe ruined town turns gold a moment\r\nAs the wind dies.\r\n \r\nEh, not much scarier\r\nThan dying--\r\nThis gigantic storm.\r\n<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Going to view the storm damage– On the doorknob, A single evergreen leaf.   Stepping outside…. After the hurricane, only the grass Looks the same. It turns out, just by taking a few steps beyond my door there was no end to the incidents and adventures available in my own neighborhood. Going down one street, […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001002,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1728],"tags":[1765],"class_list":["post-3008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hurry-up-hurricane","tag-hurry-up-hurricane","category-1728-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3008"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7738,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3008\/revisions\/7738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}