Altered Reality

This post began as an exercise for my Seattle writing group: each of us chose three of our favorite words, then we were to write a poem (or group of poems) using all 18 words.
The poem below (all 18 words included!) was inspired by an article I read last week in the Seattle Times.
Apparently, in the name of better image quality, Google Earth has replaced all of its post-Katrina Gulf Coast maps with pre-Katrina satellite images.

What's wrong with this picture? If a map isn't accurate and real, what's the point?

ODE TO GOOGLE EARTH
for karen l

Consider this:
A mango bobs
on water,
a balloon swept up
in tempest
skyward;
panicked vertigo.
Wind and tide punch
shore and tree
and home
and sea
Until
a placard on a pole,
a door
---twisted,
tangled---
jangle
in a street deserted.

Politicians
so adroit!
Wring their hands and
ruminate,
scowl and scamper,
duck their heads and
cover up;
kings caught in
skivvies.
Later
with ebullience
they vow changes not delivered.

Now
---eighteen months gone by--
In clandestine rooms with
big oak tables
where not one is breathing the aroma
of fish
of rot
of death locked
in homes collapsed,
they futz and alter.

Maps remade
---although they lie
Destruction vanished
---though it hasn't
Neighborhoods
---though dead---
rebuilt
Boats
in harbors nonexistent.

Photo: approaching storm; hanalei bay, Kauai