Hiroshima 1989: Create Your Own Healing, and Ours

I wander around the dead
and naked land of Hiroshima.

The artists have done their best 
to do a make over of this land,

into a sacred space 
for the pursuit and worship of peace.

It is quiet, 
petrified from the last bit of noise and fury

when angels lost some feathers 
from the sky downward descending.

Some of us fly, 
some of us club down our own wings,

but human nature thrives 
in air as well as on earth.

I photograph the doves 
as they fly towards me

their wings span time, 
distance, drama and trauma.

Doves fly above my outstretched hands 
in circles and spirals –

they grace the air with details 
of their elegant historical flights.

Mobile sculptures that embody grace, 
birds fly in the formation

of one large family, 
united by inheritance, 
as emissaries of peace.

Wings brush the tangles 
from my world-worn hair 
leaving feathers as bookmarks,

time-holders to save their place 
as they read my thoughts.

I pull a feather from my hair 
and read in it the collective memory of birds.

I watch them fly on wings of history 
to show us they survive destruction,

only to soar to greater heights – 
birds come back when time has healed hearts.

Some of the birds are malformed, 
a new breed emerging

surviving to thrive 
among the bare dirt ground 
and the eloquent shrines.

The birds survive 
hundreds of years stronger, 
not broken –

their DNA realigned, 
re-purposed and re-created –

the evolved mutations 
of their lives’ time span.

Feathers fall like snowflakes,

as the birds comfort us 
in the shower of their memories. 

I honor the birds’ flight 
to create purity and silence.

I watch and learn from the birds 
so I too can create quiet –

I distance myself by flying 
away from the source of the noise.

Everything diminishes in the zone of flight;

tears, snowflakes, feathers, 
all blend into white noise of pure light.

My external world unfolds into peace, 
as my internal world holds harmony.

I remember the elder lady of Hiroshima, 
meeting her was not chance.
She transformed her collateral state of damage 
into being a states woman of peace.

From her point of view 
I had no responsibility in the exchange -

Hiroshima is still, simply, 
feeling, the effects of creation and destruction.
Hiroshima is crying for us all; 
all who are alive, all who died,

all yet to be born, 
and all of us still living separate from the whole.

As her final moments approached 
she chose to create compassion,

to forgive and give the wisdom 
to regain a state of harmony.

By attuning to the forces within 
herself that govern her world,

she created an opportunity 
to bring about her own healing, and ours.


~~ Other People's Fingerprints ~~
Sometime after 1939 Anis Nin said;
 “Life shrinks or expands 
in proportion to one’s courage.”

"Mysterious Woman - Invisible Cities Opera" by Karin Lisa Atkinson