When the Mute Button Won't Work?
Score tied, two minutes to go.
Great picture on the muted TV
as I listen to my jazz
on the speakers
Tied again and just seconds left.
The fans look to be screaming.
First overtime.
Crowd going crazy
enthusiasm without sound.
Second overtime.
Sweat-worry covers the players.
Tensions are clearly high.
Third overtime.
Shot at the buzzer.
Atlanta wins.
Crowds burst on the floor
to celebrate.
Off goes the muted TV.
I head for bed unaffected
by all the emotion in Atlanta,
for I could not share the tensions
without the Atlanta sound.
Off to an easy sleep without a thought
of game excitement and emotion.
I wake with no memory
or thought of the game.
Haiti is devastated.
Shaken like a rat caught by
my big old calico cat.
Debris all over
buildings in ruin
injured and dead
all over the street.
The moans of the injured,
the screams of relatives of the dead
and constant gloom of
talking heads descriptions
of the tragedy is
just too much for anyone.
Hit the mute button
Turn up the jazz
and quit looking.
But the moans and screams
and vivid pictures
are not turned off,
they follow wherever I go.
There is a tragedy communication channel
not controlled by
media moguls.
This is the anguished human channel
broadcast across time and place
by a horror too great
for the mute button to silence.
Haiti I hear you!
And I can't turn you off.
Doug Minnis January 18, 2010