Kuroi Ame (Black Rain)

Cherry

By Silver Spun Sand

Mon, 14 Jul 2014
  • 2320 reads
9 comments
 
August 6th 1945
Were you born yet?
If so, where were you?
What were you doing?
 
She tumbles out of bed round 8.00 am. Looks
out the window as the sky turns red
 
A blinding light – a white light. Roof tiles 
crashing all around.  The next thing she recalls
is floating through the air like some big, fluffy cloud  
 
Smoke billows as her world turns upside down
 
Day becomes night
Darkness...nothingness...
except for the wind
 
Then a sound like a buzzing...
a humming of mosquitoes,
until she sees them coming;
 
ghosts – climbing the hill from Hiroshima, below
 
Hands, held aloft
Skin, peeling off
Wet flesh, red flesh
 
The stench too much to bear; on reflection, 
much like squid – cooking
 
Closer they draw...
Drove after drove of the living dead.
 
Water, we need water, they beg, so 
she gives them the dregs from the well
 
If the dead can die again as she quenched
their thirsts, they did.
 
A child, as she was then, she thought 
she’d killed them, but her parents told her,
 
No, girl. The devil had
 
He’d laughed until he cried, and as tears 
streamed down his face, they fell
as poisoned rain
 
Sixty-nine years on her guilt still remains
and for her sins – her penance; 
 
the kimono she was wearing –
red dragons breathing fire
branded on her skin
 
Such is her legacy
Such is humanity’s
Certificate 15
Poem
Silver Spun Sand Poems
Historical Fiction

Comments

Submitted by Bee on

Hi Tina.

You really brought the horror back to life - made us visualise the unimaginable. It's out of our minds for the most part, but for those who live with the legacy, the nightmare continues. 

Bee

Submitted by Silver Spun Sand on

Thanks so much for reading this, Bee.  

On the morning of August 6, 1945, the United States Army Air Forces, dropped the nuclear weapon, “Little Boy”, on the city of Hiroshima.  Three days later, followed the detonation of the “Fat Man” bomb over Nagasaki, Japan.  The approximation is that between 100,000 and 200,000 lost their lives instantly and in the immediate aftermath - most of them civilians.  Countless thousands of others have died and are dying today, from the resultant radiation.

Tina

 

Submitted by Shannan on

I like the take from an old woman today. I wish people would learn... Isreal, Afghanistan, Asia... it is so horrific... so horrific... a few elite who want power, who's ego's aren't satisfied, and thousands suffer for it... horrible.

Thanks for keeping awareness and truth going Tina. $

 

Submitted by Silver Spun Sand on

That is it, exactly...as if you read my mind, Shannan.

Tina

 

Submitted by Shannan on

Your poems are that good, it had to happen ;-) 

 

Submitted by Silver Spun Sand on

Thanks, Shannansmiley

Tina

 

Submitted by lenchenelf on

A haunting reverie, as she is haunted. Liked this Tina.

Lena xx

 

Submitted by Silver Spun Sand on

Good to hear from you, Lena, and I do hope life is treating you kindly.

Haunted, she most certainly is.  Many thanks for reading, and for your words.

Tina xx

 

Submitted by skinner_jennifer on

You captured all the horrors in this poem Tina. 

It's hard to imagine how bad this must have been for those people,  leave alone living with the horrors of what they went through. 

As always a well thought out piece of writing.

Jenny.