A girl with her cat
The girl clutched her cat as the flood waters rose
As people in uniforms said she must let it go
Where will it sleep? How will it eat?
She asked as foul water flowed to her feet.
New Orleans was a death trap with jaws slowly closing
No room for pets when people could barely take clothing.
We use to escape A-bombs by hiding under our desks
Seeing Soviet missles turning our cities to wrecks
Bombs dropping out of the blue, blue sky;
Aimed by clutches of cowardly spies
Now we fear terrorists who come at us with planes,
Shaping dust clouds out of people and leaving buildings in flames
But no weatherman gave us bombs or planes in our forecast,
To explain failing dikes or storm-rattled masts.
People stared out into the distant waves of that vast gulf
Watching as mother nature gathered her dastardly bulk.
The jaws of doom closing in on that city’s great past
As potent as terrorists or a nuclear blast
With images of New Orleans rippling in us so clear
Just who is it this time we are expected to fear?
The soviets with their missles aimed at our kind?
The terorists with air planes killing all they can find?
Or those who protect us when they find the time?
And in her arms the girl held her cat
Told she would find it again when she got back
Ever so slowly her fingers’ grip eased
And let the cat loose and into the reeds
And as she pondered her poor pet’s fate
The President in Texas was feeding his dog steak.