Japan Thoughts

by Tamara Passey

The people of Japan have been in my thoughts and prayers these past few days. The shock has given way to sadness and even dread with the ongoing nuclear crisis. I saw a report last night that highlighted the orderliness and great calm the Japanese people have demonstrated, even distributing supplies evenly among themselves when they came upon shortages. Not exactly what we see here.

I remembered a short poem I wrote after the Tsunami in December of 2005.

I realize I may not have any shirts made in Japan, but I think the sentiment is similar.

Tsunami 

India and Thailand with ocean shores

So far from my dry desert home

If I hadn’t heard the news reports of you

I wouldn’t have known

I couldn’t have known, or believed

How many lives you lost

To waves travelling at jet-plane speeds

My desert life goes on uninterrupted

No un-channeled water here.

Until I pull the iron out to press some laundry and

Open the collar of a clean white shirt

And there on the tag are those oft ignored words

Made in Sri Lanka

While the iron steams in my motionless hand

All I can think is that this someone made this shirt across that ocean

And I wonder amid the news-report scenes of destruction

Replaying in my mind

Is the factory is still there? Are the people still alive?

Do they still have a home?

And with as little warning as Mother Nature gives

One drop, then two, and

I am taken over by a wave of tears in the desert.