TBT: Pearl Harbor

“A day that will live in infamy,”

so our president said.

Many cried late at night

as they lay in their beds.

Our people unjustly attacked,

our anger inflamed,

we marched into war,

our enemies to maim.

We fought valiantly

and we won,

though many a mother

lost her son.

In a twisted way

that fateful day

made it where a war was won,

the world was made peaceful,

and, temporarily, terror was done.

Background:

This one is the hardest one to share so far because I cringe at it more for my own sparse knowledge at that time than for the writing itself. The stance of the poem feels so conflicting with more nuanced ideas, with who I am and who I want to be.

Or maybe incomplete is a better word than conflicting - the poem acknowledges some truth, but not all. However, I still don’t have an all-encompassing grasp on such things, so I think I should cut my childhood self some slack, ya know?

We must have been learning about Pearl Harbor in history when I wrote this in middle school - I have never been a history buff, so I can’t claim to be able to make deep connections and analysis about events and their many repercussions.

However, since I wrote this poem, I have shifted, even without being excessively well-versed in history. I remember reading Hiroshima by John Hersey in college, but I don’t remember what brought me to it. It wasn’t assigned reading. Whatever way I came across it, I’m thankful, maybe not glad exactly, but thankful that I did. It makes one wonder:

Can extreme violence be justified by “it will save so many lives”? “It will bring the conflict to a swifter close”?

Or by “but they did _________ to us”?

And can we even justly say we know - not assume, not calculate, not hypothesize, but KNOW - what our “necessary evils” will do or prevent?

I don’t know.

I just know that so many horrible circumstances are of our, humanity’s, own making, whether intended or not. Sometimes I have heard people say in response to the idea of God sending Jesus that “we don’t need anybody to save us,”

I look at events like this and what followed, and all I can think is, “Yes, we do.”

Wishing you goodness without end,

Jess