August 6th
6/8/08 20:58![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
owlectomyToday is the 53rd anniversary of the atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima.
For ten months I lived in Nagasaki; for ten months I tried to make myself visit the atomic bomb museum, and couldn't manage to do it. I thought I had so much time, but suddenly the last few months turned into a rough blur of falling down a flight of stairs, and nearly failing out of my literature class.
Three years ago, when I found myself volunteering to help with a peace memorial in Carrboro, I found Kurihara Sadako's poem "Umashimen ka na."
It was night in the basement of a broken building.
Victims of the atomic bomb
Crowded into the candleless darkness,
Filling the room to overflowing -
The smell of fresh blood, the stench of death,
The stuffiness of human sweat, the writhing moans -
When, out of the darkness, came a wondrous voice.
"Oh! The baby's coming!" it said.
In the basement turned to living hell
A young woman had gone into labor!
The others forgot their own pain in their concern:
What could they do for her, having not even a match
To bring light to the darkness?
Then came another voice: "I am a midwife.
I can help her with the baby."
It was a woman who had been moaning in pain only moments before.
And so, a new life was born
In the darkness of that living hell.
And so, the midwife died before the dawn,
Still soaked in the blood of her own wounds.
We shall give forth new life!
We shall bring forth new life!
Even to our death.
For ten months I lived in Nagasaki; for ten months I tried to make myself visit the atomic bomb museum, and couldn't manage to do it. I thought I had so much time, but suddenly the last few months turned into a rough blur of falling down a flight of stairs, and nearly failing out of my literature class.
Three years ago, when I found myself volunteering to help with a peace memorial in Carrboro, I found Kurihara Sadako's poem "Umashimen ka na."
It was night in the basement of a broken building.
Victims of the atomic bomb
Crowded into the candleless darkness,
Filling the room to overflowing -
The smell of fresh blood, the stench of death,
The stuffiness of human sweat, the writhing moans -
When, out of the darkness, came a wondrous voice.
"Oh! The baby's coming!" it said.
In the basement turned to living hell
A young woman had gone into labor!
The others forgot their own pain in their concern:
What could they do for her, having not even a match
To bring light to the darkness?
Then came another voice: "I am a midwife.
I can help her with the baby."
It was a woman who had been moaning in pain only moments before.
And so, a new life was born
In the darkness of that living hell.
And so, the midwife died before the dawn,
Still soaked in the blood of her own wounds.
We shall give forth new life!
We shall bring forth new life!
Even to our death.
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7/8/08 02:14 (UTC)(no subject)
7/8/08 06:28 (UTC)(no subject)
7/8/08 10:30 (UTC)