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Hiroshima

Robert Lawrence

    Is it Hir’-o-shi-ma or Hi-rosh’-im-a? I listened on the Internet, over and over. I heard subtle variations of hi-ro-shi-ma (with all syllables stressed roughly the same). In all variations, ro and shi were distinct syllables. In Hi-rosh’-i-ma, is our collective unconscious altering language in an attempt to obviate the Bomb?
    The citizens of Hiroshima faced a similar quandary: Should they preserve the only building near ground zero that wasn’t completely demolished? Or should they tear down the skeletal ruin, and consign its horror to the past. Gembaku Domu (A-Bomb Dome) still stands as the most striking structure in Peace Park. The Park is an enduring monument to the victims of the bomb, and a graphic plea to the nations of the world to abolish nuclear weapons.
    The most recent letter of protest (as of this writing) from the Mayor of Hiroshima went out in August, 2013 to President Obama, protesting a nuclear weapons experiment involving plutonium carried out between April and June of this year. A copy of the letter has no doubt been added to the long series of mayoral protest letters at the Hiroshima Memorial Peace Museum.
    The Museum is a lot to take in. My wife was most impressed by how quickly green plants started growing through bomb ash that people feared would be sterile for a thousand years. I was impressed by photographs of Japanese people enthusiastically supporting the troops during the early years of World War II—photos that reminded me of TV coverage of our shock and awe invasion of Iraq.
    What struck me most in the Museum was the story of Sadako Sasaki. The force of the atomic bomb blast, the hypocenter a mile from her house, blew her out the window. Her mother carried her away from the burning area. Near Misasa Bridge, the black rain of radioactive ash fell upon them. Sadako became an active student, the fastest runner in her school. In November 1954, lumps developed on her neck and behind her ear. By January 1955, purple spots had developed on her left leg. Diagnosis: leukemia, a year to live at the most. Picking up on the Japanese legend that someone who folds 1,000 paper cranes has a wish granted, Sadako folded over 1,000 cranesa to express her wish to live. You can see her statue in Peace Memorial Park.

Haiku

She’d be old like me
the girl who made paper cranes
yet died from the bomb



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