Two Feet In | Writing and the Institution

Airport terminals were once places of hello's and goodbye's. Now sterile, rooms of the dead, like purgatory, Bodiless voices come over the PA, Announcing someone's name --  about to miss a departure  forgot an item at security  an offer to stand y for extra cash. These quiet, commercial, market hallways Tell us everything good aout a city --  the best restaurants  a spa or hotel  a each or the mountains But nothing of the invisible ones --  of the poor, the old  the empty houses and unkempt lawns  the vacant factories and abandoned warehouses. Those invisibles are left secret. Everyone smiles in these marketing posters. Everyone is happy in the city beyond the terminal. Travel to and from makes you happy, and that makes us happy. Airports were once stages for movies --  drama  romance  comedy -- But they are no longer places for the public to share. We take a taxi or our girlfriend drops us off. ...

The year of the drought --  When the lawns died,  When the frogs didn't show, When the fires did come -- I walked along the drying stream,  Seeing the mud turn to clay. I walked through the fields, Seeing the dirt crack. Then the grass dried up and The dirt opened from cracks to crevices, Breaches in the ground  Where I fit my fingers. I thought of the frogs, the crawfish, Wondered how they would survive. Weeks turned to months with no rain. The creeks withered. Turtles disappeared, Dark ponds became dark holes. Cormorants looked in vain for fish  Where no fish were.  The crackling grass caught fire and News crews rushed, too late, only To find the volunteer fire department Had arrived and watered the brush Enough. Decimation. One in ten trees died that year. All were hit, but the pines stressed early. Their stress invited the beetles, The beetles consumed mercilessly. I lost two 60-foot pines that year, Paid teams of Hi...