we cannot see the people that are gone

but we can see that the people are gone

this is a picture taken in New Orleans. The visuality of the land, the interrogation of this moving picture show by giving a picture show to you, the readers, it is hard to get into (and even now harder) but so very necessary for us.

as we toured around we commented on how it felt to pass through a landscape, a foreign landscape, for some the first time to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast since Katrina, for some the 2nd, with little or no narration, a silent film progressing, parading, processing through the windows of the vans we drove in, to the music and faint chatter of talk that we managed to keep going, of how it was hard to connect. some were struck straight into lament, sorrow, grief, anger, frustration, disbelief, unbelief, and on and on into emotion, some of us documented and sent our images onward.

the vacancy of the landscape is what gets to you sometimes, the sheer lack of it all when you realize that you could have three years previous been standing in the middle of a pickup football game, or double dutch, or a block party, and on and on…

a more formal declarative post will be dedicated to the nature of this blog, the nature of this trip, the nature of this disaster, for the nature of the light that is shed on New Orleans and rom it burnishes the halls of American homes , polishes the corners of the eyes at times.