Category: Poems about Hope

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Poet Natasha Head

Will We Ever Hurt

Across the ocean, around the world
Devastation knows no limits
When our kind are left to suffer
As happenstance or coincidence
Embraces them in a vice like grip

Our prayers fly, but not fast enough
As families are torn
Tossed like discarded paper
Into the vortex of the unknown
Swimming toward the ether

I can’t tear my eyes away
Power, raw and uncompromising
No judgment, for in Her wrath
We are all equals
Saints and Sinners united

Disbelief as the numbers rise
Heart aching, knowing
I will never understand
The grief, the pain, the fear
The Loss

The world suddenly grows quiet
Piece by ravaged piece
Will the puzzle ever be solved?
Will the pieces ever again fit?
We change, as the result

Blessed in the safety of my home
Loved ones surrounding me
Watching the turn of the tide
Will we ever hurt?
Will we ever understand the loss?


Natasha Head is a poet from the east coast of Canada. She writes me, “While I’ve seen the strength of the ocean in my Nova Scotia homeland, nothing could ever compare to what what’s happened in Japan. I urge you, each and everyone, to give what little you can spare to help those who are in need so much more than we are, RIGHT NOW.”
Please visit her blog at http://natashalivestowrite.blogspot.com/

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Thanks for reading Poets for Tsunami Relief.

Please consider a donation to The Red Cross.

In Canada, go to: http://www.redcross.ca/article.asp?id=000043&tid=016

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Poet Joanna Lee

Prayers in rough wood

My prayers in rough wood
are strung up with twine and hope,
spiral like incense
to an unhearing heaven,
float back to the ears of men

Who with gentle hands
unfold my finger-petals,
suck out from cupped palm
the splinters of unborn dreams,
catch the bleeding dew of faith.

Joanna Suzanne Lee lives and writes in Richmond, Virginia, USA. She writes:
“This was my first effort at a tanka (actually it’s two tanka put back-to-back), and it came from an image I took when I visited Japan two summers ago: an offering left at a Shinto shrine in Nara, where you could write your own prayers or wishes on little wood blocks and hang them on the shrine itself.”
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Thanks for reading Poets for Tsunami Relief.

Please consider a donation to The Red Cross.

In Canada, go to: http://www.redcross.ca/article.asp?id=000043&tid=016

In the UK, go to: http://www.redcross.org.uk/Donate-Now

In both Canada and the US, click on the red buttons I’ve added on my sidebar

(red buttons are on the home page http://atomic-temporary-2589064.wpcomstaging.com), top right.

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Poet Kayla Stewart, age 5

I Believe

I believe
God is everything

everything soft
not hard

even the sun
and the rain

Kayla Mae Stewart is a five-year-old poet and artist. She lives in Quebec, Canada with her parents and two demanding cats.

Ed’s note:
Kayla doesn’t attend church, though she has gone to a couple Sunday school meetings with her cousins (and loved it). Don’t think I’ve talked about God much with her, only to say what I believe, that he watches over us, so this one blew me away. Yesterday, after school, Kayla was talking about how her teacher was saying sometimes things are real that you can’t see. I piped up “Maybe like God,” and she went on to say exactly what I transcribed above. She said it, and I wrote it down as a poem, to share with you.

Thanks for reading Poets for Tsunami Relief.

Please consider a donation to The Red Cross.

In Canada, go to: http://www.redcross.ca/article.asp?id=000043&tid=016

In the UK, go to: http://www.redcross.org.uk/Donate-Now

In the US, click on the red button I’ve added on my sidebar

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Poet Alan Summers

Gendai haiku

first quarter moon
dancing pinheads burst
into new angel DNA

email to Canada

The moon is in its first quarter

this Japan morning

the day after

Tanka

the long night
and longer day
even our broken moon
over the biggest wave
separates our love

Alan Summers is a Japan Times award-winning writer for haiku and renga: www.withwords.org.uk

He wrote me tonight:

“Many of my Japanese friends are safe, either home, or still walking back
home. One is even on the 20th storey of a big building because Japanese
buildings are so safe, but homes can’t compete. The wave was travelling
at 600mph.”

Thanks for reading Poets for Tsunami Relief.

Please consider a donation to The Red Cross.

In Canada, go to: http://www.redcross.ca/article.asp?id=000043&tid=016

In the UK, go to: http://www.redcross.org.uk/Donate-Now

In the US, click on the red button I’ve added on my sidebar

(red button is on the home page https://hgstewart.wordpress.com), top right.

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Poet Tony Lewis-Jones

Tanka 11.03.11

God
be kind
to Japan this time.
May the waters recede
and our friends have peace.

Tony Lewis-Jones is a poet and editor who lives in Bristol, UK.

Thanks for reading Poets for Tsunami Relief.

Please consider a donation to The Red Cross.

In Canada, go to: http://www.redcross.ca/article.asp?id=000043&tid=016

In the UK, go to: http://www.redcross.org.uk/Donate-Now

In the US, click on the red button I’ve added on my sidebar (on the home page http://atomic-temporary-2589064.wpcomstaging.com), top right.