Child in Time

[dedalus]

Four-year-old Manami Kon sleeps after writing a letter to her mother, who was swept away by tsunami in Miyako, Iwate Prefecture. The little girl said late last month that she would write to her mother, and spreading a notebook on a kotatsu table at the home of relatives she spent nearly an hour writing: "Dear Mommy, I hope you are alive. Are you well?" Manami's father and younger sister also remain unaccounted for.

 

Manami chan,

the sea took your mama away

and she lives in heaven now

with dada and your sister.

 

You are alive, sweet girl,

and I think you may not believe

in life, in your solitary survival,

as the years march on.

 

People will forget.

They always do

 

You will think, many times,

better to have joined them,

to have shared their fate, why,

why should I be spared?

 

Was there a reason?

Probably not.

 

The gods of all countries

play dice with human lives,

inhumanly laughing. And so,

Manami, all of four years,

I think you will learn

to dispense with these gods

 

for they are not needed.

 

There are people in the world

you do not even know, people

from countries you have

never even heard of, places

like India, Australia, Luxembourg,

Pakistan, Ireland, Sikkim,

whose hearts go out to you.

 

They will try to send money.

This is what all good people do, willing,

useless, wringing hands, wistfully helpless.

 

Some Americans will try to adopt you.

Avoid that. Go to school.

Get a job that will help other people,

and stay in Japan. Get married, have kids.

Remember your mother.

Edited April 1, 2011 by dedalus

[moonqueen]

Four-year-old Manami Kon sleeps after writing a letter to her mother, who was swept away by tsunami in Miyako, Iwate Prefecture. The little girl said late last month that she would write to her mother, and spreading a notebook on a kotatsu table at the home of relatives she spent nearly an hour writing: "Dear Mommy, I hope you are alive. Are you well?" Manami's father and younger sister also remain unaccounted for.

 

Manami chan,

the sea took your mama away

and she lives in heaven now

with dada and your brother.

 

You are alive, sweet girl,

and I think you may not believe

in life, in your solitary survival,

as the years march on.

 

People will forget.

They always do

 

You will think, many times,

better to have joined them,

to have shared their fate, why,

why should I be spared?

 

Was there a reason?

Probably not.

 

The gods of all countries

play dice with human lives,

inhumanly laughing. And so,

Manami, all of four years,

I think you will learn

to dispense with these gods

 

for they are not needed.

 

There are people in the world

you do not even know, people

from countries you have

never even heard of, places

like India, Australia, Luxembourg,

Pakistan, Ireland, Sikkim,

whose hearts go out to you.

 

They will try to send money.

This is what all good people do, willing,

useless, wringing hands, wistfully helpless.

 

Some Americans will try to adopt you.

Avoid that. Go to school.

Get a job that will help other people,

and stay in Japan. Get married, have kids.

Remember your mother.

 

Not an hour before I read this, I had been looking at today's latest photos of Japan, reading the latest tragedy enduced tragedies, crying, trying to wear their shoes and knowing what I think I might feel, is probably not even close to their pain. I decided to try to calm myself a bit with some poetry and found this.

 

"People will forget.

They always do"

 

Mostly yes, many Americans seem to have already forgotten about New Orleans and the damaging floods in the midwest in 2008. But there are others who truly will not. I still think often of Viet Nam and cry, that was a long time ago.

 

"They will try to send money.

This is what all good people do, willing,

useless, wringing hands, wistfully helpless."

 

And there it is, where you, who doesn't even know me, wrote me into your poem. "...wistfully helpless."

 

Thank you for this piece, it is important and so beautifully expressed, in my estimation. And this is only one such story.

 

Tammi

Edited April 1, 2011 by moonqueen

[Tinker]

Hi Brendan, I was waiting for a poem such as this. I kept wondering where it was after the tragedy in Japan and I hoped it would come from you because you are there, you are living with it and you have a talent for touching us with images we can experience through your words. Most of us are as Tammi already stated, the "wistfully helpless". And yes we send money and we cry as we read your poem. But it is poems such as these that help us not forget. Thank you for this.

 

~~Tink

[Aleksandra]

An amazing write, Bren. This definitely can be turned into a song lyric, and easily can become something so powerful as the second part of the master piece of Deep Purple - "Child in Time", together with its setting, the power, the feelings... Sad and very strong... Great piece!

 

Aleksandra