A Quiet Sunday in Paradise

Last week we celebrated the sixty-seventh anniversary of the unforgettable Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii, that claimed over 2,400 American lives and wounded an additional 1,200 or so. The following is a poem I wrote seven years ago for the sixtieth anniversary of the attack. As you can see, I'm not the next candidate for poet laureate but, having had a grandfather who served in the United States Navy on a destroyer escort from 1942 until 1946, I feel a special bond with the men who fought and/or died that solemn day in our nation's history. In fact, during the spring of 1991 (about seven months before the 50th anniversary of December 7th), my grandfather was given a flag that was flown at the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial as a token of appreciation for his service in World War II. I can't imagine any honor more satisfying to a veteran of Leyte Gulf (October 1944), the largest battle in naval history to this day. The least I can do is put this little composition out there as a symbol of my own love and admiration for the men of December 7th and those, like my own grandpa Schrock, who felt the need to enlist afterwards in a courageous, indeed successful attempt at justice and liberation. Here goes.

ON THE SIXTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF PEARL HARBOR
Wednesday, December 12, 2001

The air was mute, the water still,
The ships at rest across the bay;
From high upon the lofty hill
The sun emerged to birth the day.

The sailors slept below the decks,
Dreaming in the Oahu heat;
Unseasonable sweat wetting necks
In the Hawaii winter, warm and sweet.

Bluish skies and clouds that fled—
Met the gaze of those who waked;
Yet, most were still asleep in bed,
All of them with lives at stake.

The first bomb fell at five to eight,
A torpedo next, and burst of fire;
Even early it was far too late
To spare these men their pain so dire.

There it was, cold and clean,
That blood-red sun of death and war;
Against a field of living green,
An omen of hatred, nothing more.

Many a sailor that Hell-grazed morn
Stared, unb’lieving, at the dark’ning sky;
He pondered the horror of this storm
And wondered, “Am I thus to die?”

Torpedoes, now, sliced through the waves,
Messengers of steel-tongued doom;
A weaving, winding, watery maze
Of exploding fish, a sailor’s tomb.

Oklahoma capsized, West Virginia sunk,
Ford Island strafed, and Hickam Field;
Any man at Pearl, though drunk,
Saw the power Japan could wield.

And then, of course, at eight and ten,
The mighty Arizona reared;
Smoke and fire and steel and men
Belched into the atmosphere.

The time was burned onto their clocks
Forevermore, and longer;
The pain and shame and guilt—and shock…
And guts. It made Sam stronger.

--DAS

Remember Pearl Harbor. A stronger, safer America means a stronger, safer world. Finis.