SITTING DUCKS (2)

The sixth and ninth of August respectively are the anniversaries of the US bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the latter an area largely populated by non-combatants.
These were the first and only instances where nuclear weapons were used in combat and the total death toll will probably never be accurately assessed.
It is believed that these cataclysmic events in 1945 led to the Japanese surrender and the end of the Second World War. 

WHY?


We work our fields. The sun is bright.
The men sing a patriotic song.  We bend and straighten. Our backs ache. 
We do not curse: we are polite and strong.  To work is to belong.
We toil for the Emperor’s sake.

Old Haruki points overhead: a crane is flying from the north.  Its languid wings sweep like brushstrokes. Cranes are good fortune, it is said.

We resume plowing, back and forth, joyfully, singing, sharing jokes.

I dream of fiery rice wine, ice then flame in my throat; the slow walk homeward.
We are a happy crowd.
Comradeship, sacred brotherhood, binds us together as we think of our great nation and sing loud.

I do not hear the Yankee plane
but shudder as a mushroom cloud despoils the picture-perfect sky.

Nearby Hiroshima,
domain of a nobility most proud,
is laid to waste.

Prostrate, we lie, while airborne poison, like a stain, begins to spread.
We tremble, cowed, claw at the earth, prepare to die.

Our tranquil world is turned to pain.
We burn to ash in fields we plowed.

One hundred
thousand people.

Why?