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bjbjVwVw JEFFREY BROWN: And finally tonight: As residents in New Jersey and New York continue
to recover from superstorm Sandy, we look at the physical and emotional damage through
the voice of fifth-generation Staten Islander and poet Jennifer Fitzgerald. JENNIFER FITZGERALD,
poet: I had been out on the streets helping the people, dropping off donations directly
to sites, because our evacuation centers were full, but people still needed supplies. So
my friends and I dropped donations directly off into the neighborhoods. And I had started
compiling images, and the images resonated with me. About three days after the storm,
a woman went on television, and she was crying, and she said, "Somebody, please come here
and help us. We need help." That was the first time that I had heard a clear and honest voice
come from Staten Island. I cannot show you the streets under the rubble. The sun teased
through the clouds. I watched it land on the debris, illuminating soaked Sheetrock, support
beams, a child's stuffed panda. You can't discern what came from the ocean, what the
ocean tore out. Say it, storm surge. Alliteration masks the weight of 20-foot waves pulling
themselves down on top of you. Dear reader, I cannot bring you to the quaint towns dotting
the shoreline, standing their ground against development. Instead, I will show you what
it means to stand in the rubble of your life and wait, wait for FEMA, wait for city, wait
for anyone to unblink their eyes and glance your way. I mean, the fact that a marathon
was still going to be held on this borough when we were still finding bodies in the marshes
surrounding the area where the marathon would begin? It solidified everything that Staten
Island felt about being part of the city. The Red Cross wasn't there. Salvation Army
wasn't there. I mean, not even sanitation had gotten to the streets yet. It was nothing.
Maybe they could see us, not mistake our drowning for greeting. Until then, street-side tables
proffer wares manned by residents of devastation, a familiar face to assure it's OK to take
what you need. I cannot show you the piers we fished from and the paths we used to navigate
the coast. I can show you the barefoot woman to whom I offered shoes. She stared stoically
ahead, bundled in a fraying coat: "No, give them to someone who needs them." Could you
tell a proud soul that, this time around, she's the one, the homeless woman with a mortgage?
How many lives had she lived since the full moon dragged her tide over land? The barefoot
woman asked me if they had found all the bodies yet, all the missing, as though we were working
toward a number. She heard our death toll click over as a clock, adding two at a time.
Digits are easier to swallow than images of bodies drowned in their own homes, shoved
into the backyard by waves. We seek erasure, not closure, a time when memory will be kind.
These neighborhoods are going to be brought closer together, whatever is left of them,
when people leave, because some people are going to leave. But the ones that stay are
going to understand community a lot more than they did before. It will absolutely take time.
I don't know if the landscape of this area will every look the same. Maybe it will look
better. Maybe things will -- you know, the homes will be repaired and the beaches will
be restored and we will get the seawalls and the berms that we need to protect this part
of the island from the next storm that comes. Until then, we clear a space for ourselves,
line it with diapers, bottles of water, garbage bags to be filled and emptied. With each bag
they take away, we decide what it means to salvage, what parts of ourselves we can save,
and what pieces will forever belong to the past. RAY SUAREZ: Find two more of Jennifer
Fitzgerald's poems about the storm on our Art Beat page. urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags
State urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags City urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags
place JEFFREY BROWN: And finally tonight: As residents in New Jersey and New York continue
to recover from superstorm Sandy, we look at the physical and emotional damage through
the voice of fifth-generation Staten Islander and poet Jennifer Fitzgerald Normal Microsoft
Office Word JEFFREY BROWN: And finally tonight: As residents in New Jersey and New York continue
to recover from superstorm Sandy, we look at the physical and emotional damage through
the voice of fifth-generation Staten Islander and poet Jennifer Fitzgerald Title Microsoft
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