Wave of Injustice

Picturesque coastal towns since time immemorial
Where they scratched out a living from brine and from soil
Manicured fields in rectangular patches
Boats in the harbor just back with their catches

Houses they’d lived in so many years
Paddies were sown with their ancestors’ tears
All swept away in one massive wave
Thousands condemned to a watery grave

Far removed from the centers of politics and businessmen
Small-scale farmers and seafaring fishermen
What was their crime – that they should face such horror
And meet the same fate as Sodom and Gomorrah?

Was it that they outsmarted nature with quake-proof construction
That a tsunami was sent to ensure their destruction?
Adding insult to injury one more little factor
Fuel rod melt-down at a nuclear reactor

Why such a target for heaven’s wrath
What justice is there in this aftermath?
But there is no answer to such questions one poses
Except the one given to Job and to Moses

We cannot understand, we dare not ask why
When, where, or how people may live and die
We can only help the survivors and stay well prepared
And pray that next time, again, we too will be spared

Neal Colodner