Poems from Hiroshima

While I was in Hiroshima, we had a chance to listen to and participate in a public reading of poems from a child's perspective of the atomic bombing that was highly moving. I wanted to share two of the poems that were read. Please note that the second poem is graphically descriptive of the damage the atomic bombing caused on the human body.

A burn on my teacher

On my ballet teacher's neck

There is a burn from the Pikadon

Poor thing, I thought

When she was dancing

I saw another burn on her hand.

It must have been very hot.

by Nobuko Kakutani, 2nd grade,

Niho Elementary e-school, Hiroshima City

Sky of Hiroshima

That night I slept in the open.

The next morning, I finally made it to the shelter,

but only my father was there.

Mommy and You-chan died.

The August sun

was shining brilliantly on the Yahata River before us,

oblivious to our weeping.

The next day,

Father, with an empty candy box hanging down,

and I, with a hoe upon my shoulder,

walked slowly to burnt-out Hiroshima.

The Hiroshima we finally reached was filled

with the smell of burning flesh.

The smell of bodies being cremated was like

the smell of grilled fish.

Crossing the burnt iron bridge,

Daddy and I, staggering,

see more corpses now than yesterday.

Exposed to the midsummer heat,

bodies swollen,

internal organs laid bare,

intestines whirled around,

making dim sounds,

oozing darkish yellow fluid,

from noses, from mouths, from ears,

from the hollow darkness of eye sockets.

Oh...

I can see the old stone wall,

the remains of my dear house.

In the well, a half-burnt kitchen knife

floats on the water.

An iron pot lies tumbled on its side,

bits of pumpkin, from the makeshift meal I ate that morning,

burnt and stuck inside.

I pull with my hoe at the pile of rubble that was our roof

and a single tile slides down, clattering to the ground.

Daddy crouches down, and digs with his hands.

Suddenly, his voice weak with exhaustion, he points.

I throw the hoe aside

and dig at the spot with my hands.

The tiles have grown warm in the sun.

And we dig with a grim and quiet intent.

Oh...

Mommy's bone.

Oh...

When I squeezed it,

white powder danced in the wind.

Mommy's bone.

When I put it in my mouth,

tasted lonely.

The unbearable sorrow

began to rise in my father and me.

Left alone, screaming, picking up bones

and putting them into the candy box

where they made a rustle.

My little brother was right beside my mommy.

Now little more than a skeleton,

his insides, not charred completely,

lay exposed,

stuck with bits of cotton from the mattress.

"I want to die!"

Daddy cried out.

He hugged my brother's organs to his breast

and wept.

In the burnt and broken ruins, iron pipes stuck out

and the water splashed up like a fountain.

Like a single life left untouched,

bathed in sunshine.

I fetched some water in a cracked tea cup

and put it down in front of my brother's remains.

Father took out the crackers, our rations,

and then I had to shut my eyes

for daddy could do no more,

hearing only

the voices of two buried alive.

After a while,

on my daddy's once flawless body,

spots began to spread.

Daddy, whit no hope to live,

nevertheless felt pity for me

who would be left alone,

And he forced his throat to accept

the food he did not want.

"I'd love to eat some grapes," he said.

"Please put up with the cucumbers," I replied.

It was the morning of September 1st.

I squeezed some cucumbers,

added some sugar,

and made juice.

Daddy looked at me,

saying that he felt like coming back to life,

and laughed, although his voice was so weak

it sounded like crying.

Suddenly, from nowhere,

he looked upon the emptying sky and said,

"The wind is terrible. A storm is coming... a storm."

He took a deep breath,

collapsed,

and was still.

Not even a month had passed,

and I was alone,

my body without focus,

after all the tears had run out.

Staring at the river running in front of me,

I saw,

beautiful and clean,

the blue sky of Hiroshima.

by Sachiko Hayashi.