In Biloxi, on Highway 90, a.k.a. the Beach Boulevard, historical markers stand on corners of large empty lots with lovely branched oaks. The markers speak of grand houses destroyed in a night by Camille and Katrina. Behind the markers, barren lots where the houses once stood, large and meandering, to nearby homes, attractions, restaurants with narcissus and daffodils making their yearly bloom unaware that the eyes once enjoying them and the hands that planted them have blown and floated away in violent heaves and spins – or at least the housing for their bodies did: The absent space burdened and burgeoning with some 400 souls who one day were and the next were not – their final moments known only to them and the storms.
Those lots also hold hostage the living who kept them; the cost to rebuild higher than the flood waters and equally suffocating and unfathomable. The vestiges of driveways and parking lots and fine brick work in the sand – mocking those sent to dominate and multiply – mocking the living – exposing their insignificance; reminding them they are truly no more than the piles of sand gathered atop the poured concrete that now leads to nothing but seagrass and open air.
How indifferent nature and time are to human loss and suffering.
My foundation has crumbled and still the sneeze weed blooms. The piles of sand find openings into my shoes, irritating my feet. The oaks have some sympathy – broken appendages scattered like tears, bark-barren trunks exposed to whatever insult wishes to come next. Yet still they stand tall and towering, their arms spread long and wide.
Not me – I stand because I must, but I am forced to embrace – too much – that weakens my knees and sets my heart on edge.
It is a lot.