First there was the light
The sound of destruction.
Then came the whirlwind
Of nuclear immolation,
No ashes left only
Dust to scatter
All that love reduced to
Charred organic matter.
Survival was borrowed
In waves of pain.
From the sky fell down
A black, black rain.
It was all for nothing -
A test on civilian flesh:
The survivors mourned
Their loved ones deaths.
Sadako survived the initial
Blast, thrown out of a window
Amid the glass; just two years old
With family who loved her.
Grandma perished, but she kept
Her father, brother and mother.
She was well for a while
Then the atoms worked their
Dark destructive magic.
Yet still the victors celebrated
And justified the tragic.
"To the person who folds One thousand
Cranes, a wish will be granted"
The legend was clear, so Sadako folded,
Hopeful hearted.
A thousand cranes came and went
Fashioned out of scraps of paper,
Heaven-sent.
Ten years had passed since the
Monsters dropped The Bomb
On people who were already beaten -
Women, children; old and young.
Sadako died, her wish not granted:
To simply return home cured
And finish the life that she had started.
