Our day began like any other
\nNews of a storm hitting our island were deceived on deaf ears
\nNot knowing that a tragic event was waiting for us in just a few hours…<\/p>\n
When rain started to fall, doom came like a thief in the night
\nAs people end their day, Soudelor was just beginning his
\nWind came from different directions bellowing through the night
\nAs if violent tremors were shaking our entire island<\/p>\n
The night seemed to last forever, as we watch the hours closely
\nThe only thing we can do is hold on to one another
\nPraying that Soudelor’s wrath will quickly come to pass…<\/p>\n
Alas, the day breaks and so does our bleeding hearts
\nOur once beautiful island paradise ravaged and destroyed
\nHundred-year-old trees lie broken like helpless twigs
\nAs people’s houses became shattering debris<\/p>\n
Life changed in a twinkling of an eye; our sources of power obliterated
\nDesperation ensued and all were reduced to living in the darkness
\nOur eyes filled with tears from destruction that enveloped our home<\/p>\n
As we try to adjust to our reality now, valuable lessons are still learned
\nPatience, compassion, integrity, perseverance, brotherhood
\nOur faith stretched wider, deeper, bigger than ever before<\/p>\n
Collective suffering will only make our community’s bond even tighter
\nAnd no powerful storm can ever shake our resilient island spirit
\nAs long as we have each other, we will get through anything
\nWhat doesn’t kill us will only make us stronger<\/p>\n
Father, give us strength to live another day
\nGive us wisdom so we can understand this beautiful disaster
\nAnd make us appreciate what we have and never take anything for granted…<\/p>\n
I know this isn’t an opinion piece but I wanted to write about Typhoon Soudelor and how it felt as we were going through it. I hope that when people read this poem they would realize that they are not alone and that we can rise above this storm as a community.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Our day began like any other News of a storm hitting our island were deceived…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[716,67,50,6333],"class_list":["post-207954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","tag-news","tag-people","tag-power","tag-typhoon-soudelor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207954\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}