August 6, 2011

Hiroshima Never More – Sakurako Tanaka

Hiroshima Never More

“Hereafter I will place a rainbow between Heaven and Earth”

— Old Testament

Sakurako Tanaka @ 1977, 2011

goran, ningentachi, watashi no sugata o

kore ga anatagata no yokubou no subete desu

(Look at me, humankind,

this is what your greed is all about)

Red earth-coloured, cracked walls,
the iron piles sticking out high,.
where it used to be a ceiling,
before the explosion.
The Atomic Bomb Dome speaks through the silence,
as we stand still.
The four innocent eyes gazing at us,
a picture on the museum wall.

watashi mo otouto mo mousugu shinimasu

dakara oboete ite kudasai

(my brother and I will pass away soon

So please remember us)

Sakurako Tanaka

I am posting my poem written 34 years ago, at age 18.

I may have matured but not compromised evxen a least bit since then.

I read this poem at Katari-tei, a restaurant theater run by a reputed actor Masato Yamanouchi, in Shimokitazawa. It was a Xmas event, and Tokyorites did not want to hear message – no nuke, no war. Mr. Masato Yamanouchi did not care – he told the audience that one day, I will carry the flag for the poets in Japan. But I have left Japan not so long after that, and here I am, living in Canada never in my heart leaving Japan and my homeland of Northern Japan.

I am coming home to this country of mine in despair, to the people whose voices are still suppressed. I have been to Fukushima all my life that’s my home and please don’t take that away from me!

These children facing the camera
not a single hair on their heads
1945 August 6,8:15 am
an atomic bomb was dropped from the sky over Hiroshima
thousands of lives evaporated, dust and particles, in seconds

Someone was enjoying the morning sun,
sitting outside, dreaming,
broken stairs with a permanent human shadow
* * *

The Mu, the Atlantis, the Garden of Eden….

like a sharp lightening in the sky,
rushing to reach its peak and then disappear,
how many Sodoms must we count?
competing against each other,
to build the castles in the air,
how many more Babels need we build?

You may say,
They belong to a long lost past and
we don’t know much about them
but how about Hiroshima
Is this not one amongst them,
But our own living legacy
Here’s a story
weathered in the wind
a prophet had told:

in 1888 a French expedition team discovered in Africa
a glassy plane four inches thick
spreading over several hundred miles

… and the same glassy plane was formed once again,
When the US government did their first A-bomb test
At the White Sands,New Mexico

Finger Prints … not of God

* * *

Here in Hiroshima,
we made the ruined city into a peoples’ plaza,
named it the Peace Park,
thousands of doves spread their wings high,
as we pray for the eternal peace and freedom.
Laughing, the children chase the doves
till the birds fly right up into the sky
flapping their wings, feathers dance

surprised, the grown-ups look above them,
into the deep
clear blue sky

Our future is this blue sky
without a single grey cloud
For we demand the perfect,
taintless peace.

It is something never before
the humanity has experienced
It is never before written
In the history of our planet earth

BUT

Between the Sky and Earth
is the rainbow
that forever unites the two
It is the proof that
we, too,
belong in the eternal peace of the Universe.
There is an UNDISRUPTED HARMONY
that embraces everything that existed, exists, will exist
from the beginning to the end of time

Like or not,
we are part of it;
without even knowing we always were, now are, and will be
awakened, dignified, and triumphed
The time is here and now
our future is in our hands
each one of us, without a single exception,
faces this challenge

Time is NOW, everything is right here
Let’s BEGIN

PEACE is not a VICTORY
Nor FREEDOM never DIES

children, grown-ups,
mothers, fathers,
grandmothers and grandfathers,
lovers and friends,
brothers and sisters,

Hiroshima never More,
PEACE FOREVER!

True peace is written all over this splendid blue sky,
The infinity, the great spirit,
all my relations