Turkey- Syria Earthquakes- Incredible Endurance Of Survivors Poem by Bernedita Rosinha Pinto

And as rescuers still keep digging
day and night trying to find survivors
in the middle of that earthquake
where buildings have collapsed
upon each other and rested;
far beyond the fear of safety
people are also still standing closely
and waiting anxiously
to see a survivor, a family member alive
amidst that rubble.

Suddenly a child emerges,
showing its face, telling she is alive
and everyone keeps shouting with joy,
also a new born baby keeps crying
though the mother has died
and the rescuers shout and praise
her survival as a blessing of life;
but how will this child
ever learn the love of a mother?

How could earthquakes create
such tragedies like these
as mounds of debris have covered
and silenced so many people in two countries?
How will the eyes of the people
of Turkey and Syria ever avoid grieving?
How will they avoid remembering
their lost family members
when they will see all those fallen buildings
that have buried their families,
friends and neighbors?

How will they separate the past
with the present and the future
or was that earthquake a decision-maker
of a fate that was so collectively decisive
that it took away children and adults
in just a few moments without any forewarning?

And as the earthquakes have dealt
so stringently with the lives of people
as shattered are homes and hearts
of thousands of people
that neither was a hug,
nor a goodbye was possible or necessary
when their loved ones perished
under the debris of that massive catastrophe.

And as they got buried deep in the arms
of this earth called their homeland,
no chance to offer flowers or prayers
as so abrupt was their end;
and those who will live on
will walk with their hearts so heavy
as they will recollect and miss
their mothers and fathers,
their sisters and brothers,
their children and loved ones
who got buried under
the very apartments they were living;

these apartments which were their homes
were destroyed by those earthquakes
yet some survivors endured the devastation
and made it thro' the hardships
to breathe and live again on this earth
which is indeed a reward and a re-birth
that one should revere and salute
their luck and courage.