Ambushed

by Katrina’s wind and rain
the dead depart
amid the ruin of crisis – families
desperate for life
caught in the swamp of despair

and through the streets of
New Orleans a song of hope
lingers on a guitar string

death no longer works of fiction
nor foreign village under the
ruin of an Afghan suicide bomber
but this is America – land
of the free

remember them in the shortness
of memory – remember them
to the end of their lives.

© Richard L. Provencher