I wrote this poem in the last few days of 2004, following the Christmas day tsunami that devastated South and Southeast Asia. I make no claim that this is a poem that bears witness to that disaster in any way. I was living in Japan at that time, geographically closer to the destruction but still worlds removed, and like everyone in the world I was taking in the news and the widespread groping to say something about it, to explain or attribute or blame or comfort. The poem ended up being about that groping, and about the ultimate failure of any language, any image or metaphor or system of belief, in the face of something so big.
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