FOR SADAKO

Photo by S. Auberle

Today is the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.  In Japan there is a legend that if you fold 1,000 paper cranes a live crane will grant you a wish.  Sadako Sasaki, a victim of leukemia as a result of the bombing is a heroine to the children of Japan, who visit her memorial in the Hiroshima Peace Park to leave paper cranes they've made in her honor.

For Sadako, who never got to grow old…

born the year after me, who did.

Her beautiful bones stricken

by the atom bomb disease,

she was only two

when Hiroshima was bombed,

and though spared that awful day,

the poison lurked within,

and ten years later consumed her.

Only because I was born

across the world, did I receive

 the gift of growing old

and when these bones

of mine are ash, fling them

into the sky, into wind

and my beloved lake,

return them to earth,

let them make a tree.

Mix my ashes with Sadako

and all those who have died

and are dying every day,

in our still-misguided

attempts at ending war.

Blend me into that soul

waiting to be born, the one

who will finally  bring peace,

for until we learn, there is nothing--

not even a thousand cranes--

that can save us now.