Dana Reuelle R.

Uy
1SCL1
7 December 2015
The Fear of Tomorrow

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and kind of fear is
the fear of the unknown. H.P. Lovecraft, Supernatural Horror in Literature

There were a lot of poems in the book that I can choose from but the poem that struck me the
most is, The Waves. I can relate to it a lot and I had an epiphany that whats happening in the
world right now might or will happen any day. Everyday we hear several news about different
kinds of wars between two countries or more, natural calamities, death of people because of
religion, etcetera. We are afraid but we dont know where. I chose The Waves because it says a
lot about our society before and now. It gives us an imagery on the primitive lives of our
ancestors. Because of the inevitable calamities of nature, the cities were decimated just like how
the houses, families and lives of the people were destroyed before, which are now legends we
read from books. In the end of the poem it says that someday, there will be also legends about us,
the present that we were afraid too that unknowingly, history will repeat itself. Change frightens
us and the only thing we can do is to learn to accept it and make it a part of our lives.
In our lives, we will never know what will happen tomorrow, unless its a quiz or exam our
teachers had scheduled days before. The idea of fear isnt just about how the world will be

Dana Reuelle R. Uy
1SCL1
destroyed, but also the fear of the unknown whether it could be emotionally, spiritually or
physically painful. The lines They will fall from the skies, to bounce on the asphalt, to hurt you,
to replace the rains that will one day be nothing but a veil of banished voices gasping in our
dreams. and And once, in another legend, there were offices, high-rise buildings, crumbling
under the shudder of an ocean returning. were the lines that made it clear to me that in the
present time, these could happen again. We will suffer from different kinds of pain and
eventually, this will all end but there was nothing we can do to stop it once it happens. For
example, here in the Philippines, weve been experiencing a lot of typhoons, earthquakes,
landslides, volcanic eruptions and many more. The Filipinos have been learning to be prepared in
situations like these. But we are still afraid because we never know how these calamities will
affect and change our lives. Our culture is very family oriented that even in times of disasters,
families will still stick to and help each other. We are afraid not because we know we might lose
our livelihoods, shelters or in a worst case scenario, our loved ones. Fear becomes more
dominant because we have no idea what will happen next and everything might change again or
worse, go back to square one.
Change is inevitable and we are very scared of the fact that we cant control it. We must learn to
accept it because its not us who decides what will happen in our lives. For me, the poem met the
Literary Standards very well because the artistry, intellect, suggestiveness, spiritual, permanence,
universality and style were there one way or another. The poem made me realize that our time in
this world is temporary. One day, we will be washed away one way or another and our lives will
be one of the stories not only children but everyone will read. I also realized that in line of the

Dana Reuelle R. Uy
1SCL1
fact that our life here is temporary, we must start living our lives like its our last and spend it
with our family as much as possible because we never know that even though we are afraid of
change, it might bring something positive in our life.