HIROSHIMA

In 2011, as I watched the heartbreaking news from Japan, I couldn't help but remember that we (the United States) once voluntarily unleashed radioactive weapons on the people of Japan. My poem entitled Hiroshima is based on the eyewitness account of Miyoka Matsubara. (At the time a 12 year old girl.) Later she visited the United States with a group of other Hiroshima survivors, all young women disfigured like herself, named "the Maidens of Hiroshima". She continues to this day to tell her story of horror in both Japan and the United States. My hope and prayer is that we do away with these weapons of war...


(for Miyoko Matsubara)

I heard the whirring engines of a B-29.
I glimpsed its wings and tail; a sign
of foreboding filled the earth and the sky
with the terrifying message that all must die.

I saw the shadow of the descending sword.
After the flash, the heavens roared.
I fell to the ground with my hands to my head.
I awoke in the darkness and the dust of the dead.

I ran toward my home, but I could never go back.
Everything had changed; the sky was black.
I went to the river to escape the flames.
I saw bodies sink into graves without names.

All around me were the broken pieces of mankind.
Had the whole world lost its mind?
Out of the chaos came a voice I knew.
Was this my friend? Could it be true?

Her face was swollen with slits for eyes.
From behind charred lips came her cries.
I was twelve years old when the A-Bomb hit.
Just a child when that fuse was lit.

I saw the shadow of the descending sword.
After the flash, the heavens roared.
I fell to the ground with my hands to my head.
I awoke in the darkness and the dust of the dead.