"Too Late" by the poet Edward Field

TOO LATE

Too late to hire a boat and break into attics
where the trapped are standing with water up to their necks

too late to set up the grid plan
and assign a rescue crew to each square

too late to set up the emergency phone network
that would have helped everybody know what was going on where

too late to get everybody out of the city before the hurricane struck
as Fidel Castro did

way too late to have a coherent plan
to organize the whole rescue operation

don’t even talk about it’s too late
to put money into the dikes, the wetlands

instead of pouring billions into failed savings and loans, the
pharmaceutical industry,
the oil war in Iraq, the thirty-year occupation of the Palestinians

but not too late to stand Bush and his crew
up against the wall

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