monthly musings from JD
January 2010 - they sang
on the evening of january 12, 2010, just before 5:00 PM, eastern standard time,
a 7 point zero magnitude earthquake struck about 10 miles southwest of Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
various reports indicated the epicenter was between 5 or 6 miles deep. this did not give Mother Earth much time to soften Her blows.
She did not mean this.
it just happened.
this was just a certainty.
this wasn’t some vile retribution for some unimaginable sin.
those who suggest otherwise are deranged.
this was impartial.
Mother Earth is always impartial.
She is always indifferent.
She did not mean this violent shaking.
She did not intend to bring such horrid death and mayhem to the tiny living things who cling to her.
this was not some sort of dreadful ‘punishment’, nor was this the wrath of God.
this was Mother Earth.
and at around five o’clock on that afternoon, the 12th, Her life force impelled Her to shake catastrophically for about 34 seconds, about five miles down, and ten miles southwest of Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
and She did.
She always will.
She always has.
She must.
we cannot control Her.
She is our salvation.
in 34 seconds, by some watches, Her actions caused ‘life’ as we know it, as the folks who live in Port-au-Prince know it, to cease to exist.
it was total devastation.
utter collapse.
what was, was no more.
everything was destroyed.
what little there had been to begin with, what small fraction of ‘civilized amenities’ that had existed before those 34 seconds, simply evaporated.
what ‘order’ there had been, ended.
no shelter.
no electricity.
no water.
no food.
no communication.
no schools.
no churches.
no government.
no police.
no national guard.
no military.
no supplies.
no hospitals.
no plan.
no way out.
no way in.
no nothing.
in 34 seconds, by most accounts, Port-au-Prince stopped existing.
around five o’clock in the evening, at least in these parts (these parts being the northeastern United States), the Sun starts to go down.
it does the same in Haiti.
Port-au-Prince.
maybe three million people live there.
three million people who, by some clocks, for 34 seconds had all experienced the end of the world.
the ‘final time’.
it was over.
there were dead folks everywhere, people trapped under tons of rubble screaming in terror and agony while people dug with their hands in a vain attempt to free them, people crying in fear and desperation and hopelessness, and those still among the living were all wandering around with nowhere to go, nothing to take with them, and no other purpose then just to keep moving.
always keep moving.
we must always keep moving.
and now the sun was going down.
darkness was at hand.
this is, under these circumstances, not a good thing.
yet we cannot control Her.
‘it’.
we will not.
we have nothing to do with it.
night, by-damn, will fall.
and it fell.
i have been in the absolute middle of the Atlantic ocean, on a moon-less night.
i have known ‘abject’ darkness.
pitch black.
i could not see my hand in front of my face.
i have gotten lost 35 yards from my campsite, no flashlight.
when it is that dark, one cannot see. lighting a fire, in a campsite, in a garbage can, in anything that will hold a fire, illuminates the dark, if only for a few feet and a few hours.
and now, facing certain, no way around this, night was falling, unless we’re careful we’re going down with it, several million broken people and broken things were sliding into darkness.
they gathered in small groups.
trying to get into open spaces, they gathered where they would not be killed if one of the thirty-some more 5.4 magnitude or greater ‘aftershocks’ caused more things to fall down upon them. so much had already fallen down upon them.
they lit fires.
to ward off the darkness, they lit fires.
they clutched their babies, and even though they did not believe it, they did their best to reassure their children that everything was going to be all right. how heart-breaking that there are times in life when we must lie to our children to spare them the overwhelming burden of death.
they held each other.
they did what has been done since the beginning.
huddled together to feel the presence of other living things, to be reminded that they were still alive and that they still existed and that their blood still ran in their veins, they did their best to ward off the complete horror of their circumstances.
of life.
as it had been in the beginning, so it would be at the end.
they sang.
lifting their voices, man, woman and child, calling out to the great unknown, they sang.
they prayed to their God, and they clapped and they sang.
in perhaps their final hours, these tiny living helpless things wildly clutching to their precious living Mother Earth, in the end, they came together and they clapped and danced and they sang.
the darkness was, at least for a few moments, held at bay by the sound of the human voice and the song.
the eternal, astonishing, crawling out of the ashes resilience of the human spirit.
belief.
the never-ending quest for connection.
salvation.
the soothing balm of knowing we are not alone.
one-ness.
they sang.
i sing.
there is an old Creole saying, “Behind the mountain, there are still more mountains.”
so it would be for the people of Port-au-Prince. once they made it through the first night, there would be the day, and another night, and another day, and another night, and so on and so on until some sort of ‘order’ could be established. that is the way our Mother Earth conducts Her business. regardless of the comings and goings of the things that live upon Her, She continues impartially forward in Her constant quest for Her survival.
Sometimes, like now, Her survival brings horrifying consequences to her ‘guests’.
and yet Her guests keep singing.
the primal, universal, eternal power of song makes us all family, and gives us reason to sing on.
it illuminates the darkness.
our fears, our concerns, our desires, and our constant desperate struggle to continue living are stilled by song, and, if only for a moment, we know hope and we are immortal.
so they sang.
they sang.
i sing.
thank you for singing with me.
thank you for hearing the song.
we are family.
the light will shine.
the sun will rise.
the night will fall.
Mother Earth will continue to grant us forgiveness.
She is our Savior.
we will sing.
we are Haiti.
our wounds are grave.
we are trapped amid the rubble.
we are hungry.
save us.
light a fire.
sing.
“I’m here to dig you out.”1
your eternal brother,
James C. Dawson
Thursday, Jan. 14, 2010.
New York, New York.
1): A French rescue worker who saved three people who were trapped for 56 hours.
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