*
NIIGATA
In Niigata
that day
they were grateful
for the grace
of the gray..
Niigata was picked as the
first atom bomb target
but Hiroshima and Nagasaki
were bombed that day
and not Niigata children at play
because of the Spirit Bird's
skyfeathers of gray
*
Author's Notes/Comments:
This poem is not meant to soften
the Japanese military
bombing of Pearl Harbor
nor FDR's deliberate sacrifice
of over 3000 in Pearl
Harbor in order to
mobilize the US into
war.
The bombing of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki and
the rape of China by
Japanese militarists
are unspeakable
crimes. Whether
the atom bomb's dropping
occurred because of
revenge or to intimidate
the socialist government
of Russia or both
.. it remains that
Harry Truman and
the Manhattan Project
architects were the
only people ever to
drop an atom bomb
on people.
powerful piece