Nature as Catastrophe

Nature as Catastrophe

The characteristic of Nature that connects to human experience, historical events and significant memories through the re-telling of events in the short story and poems: The Haiyan Dead and Sea Stories by Merlie M. Alunan, and The Surge by January Ereno Yap.

THE HAIYAN DEAD

When Super Typhoon Haiyan struck the Philippines on November 8, 2013, it pounded in the island of Leyte with strong winds that cost a massive number of the lives of Filipino. The poem itself might draw an image of the living and the dead as it goes in the starting lines “They walk our streets, climb stairs of roofless houses, latchless windows, and blown-off doors.” These lines referring to the victims of the Super Typhoon Yolanda that may or may not be living as of the moment for the poem generates question whether the persona is talking about a living person or a deceased.

The line “The Haiyan dead are looking for the moon washed out in a tumult of water that melted their bodies, they are looking for their bodies that once moved to the dance to play to the rhythms of love moved in the simple ways…” evokes memories of the victims of the flood, where we can think of the soul of each victim trying to find their flesh out of the devastation that happened. Remembering how they lived before the typhoon and how they lived as of the present time.

In the last line “The Haiyan dead will walk among us endlessly sleepless” the idea of the many victims which led to an understanding that the dead will still mourn and remember the tragic event that took place in the 8th of November 2013.


SEA STORIES

In the selected works of Merlie M. Alunan which consists of four poems that shares the same point of view but different places and environment. Old Women in Our Village, The Tricycle Driver’s Tale, Rafael: Ormoc, A.D. 1991 and Sendai, March 10, 2011.

In the Old women in our village, shows a metaphor in the beginning line “Old women in my village say the sea is always hungry, they say, that’s why it comes without fail…” Personifying the sea wherein there may come a time which it would search for food that implies the flooding and eating up cities, houses, cars, and people. Where only old women can hear and see the incoming danger there is to come. Similar with the poem of The Tricycle Driver’s Tale in which the sea is whispering and always saying to human beings that “Someday… Somedaywecome...” The flood will come, to devour and satisfy its hunger through devastating each one of us.

The ferry that sank after colliding with the oil tanker in December 1987, MV Doña Paz, owned by Sulpicio Lines Inc., sailed through Tablas Strait off Mindoro Oriental province to Manila. The trip, which started from Tacloban City, Leyte province, carried passengers trying to get home for the Christmas holidays. Despite a clear night and fine weather, Doña Paz rammed into the 629-ton Vector, which was transporting 9,000 barrels of fuel from Bataan province to Masbate province. The collision set off a fiery explosion. Over 4,000 people died. (Inquirer)