Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami

Earth Cracking, Water Rushing In

Is this the end?

With death does it matter?

-Haiku in honor of Japan During Disaster

S.L. Clifford 3/11/11

Since the first reports came in I've been effected by this disaster in Japan. I am one of those people that when it comes to crisis I want to be apart of the doing, not the watching, but since there is a vast ocean between my helping, and I'm not a billionaire, I figured I'd write. I took a Japanese History class as part of my graduation requirements and remembered the Haiku. Granted it isn't easy to do in English, but I tried and the above is what I came up with after a few edits to stay within the 17 syllable, 3-line rule.

I remember reading many poems during my class. The people that wrote those poems were eerily aware of nature and its destructive path. There were many poems about tsunamis, earthquakes, storms, death, love and the changes in the seasons that reflected the aging process.

I also see these things happening and I tend to joke about the end of the world, because there is a vocal minority of Earthlings obsessed with the end of the world. I would even say a large amount of people are obsessed with it, I mean look at the Zombie/Robot/Paranormal-apocalypse that litters our media. I am a fan of that genre, but that is all I really see it as, a genre, not a fortelling of things to come.

I wonder if such ideas about the end of the world comes from civilization reaching a peak. We become slaves in the innerworkings of the empire, important, but nameless, and subconsciously we yearn for a simpler time (that may or may not exist), where we are a person and not a $.

It could be a human thing, or a pioneer thing, I mean look at all the stories where we go into space to the final frontier, which is a much better way to become a self made person than being strong during the apocalypse.

For many years I have thought on days in history where the sky went black, and the air became thick, and people entered that final journey that we all must some day take alone. I've wondered if they've thought the world was ending, and if so did it really matter in that moment, because for them it was. Maybe in the minds of our ancestors the world has ended many times, and still we keep going.

It is truly a disaster what has and will continue to happen in Japan in the days to come. I hope that in the rebuilding this moment shows us all again what a proud and extraordinary people they are. I hope that the world gives what it can to aid them.

Albert Camus once wrote in his novel The Plague "What we learn in time of pestilence: that there are more things to admire in men than to despise." I imagine the same is true in times of natural disaster.