Japan

Here is a poem that talks about the ability to continue one's life in the face of other's pain. I have been thinking about this a lot lately with the recent earthquake, tsunami, nuclear power plant catastrophes in Japan. Like most of us, I cannot even begin to imagine (and hope I never experience.) But writing about it makes me feel better.

A Brief for the Defense

Jack Gilbert

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies are not starving someplace, they are starving somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils. But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants. Otherwise the mornings before the summer dawn would not be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women at the fountain are laughing together between the suffering they have known and the awfulness in their futures, smiling and laughing while somebody in the village is very sick. There is laughter every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay. If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction we lessen the importance of their deprivation. We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure, but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world. To make injustice the only measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.