KOBE, ANOTHER WAR 50 YEARS LATER Comments

Flames still burning in my eyes.
Flames unstoppably spreading.
Flamesflamesflamesflamesflamesflamesflames.
Again, flames after flames.

Burned-out ruins stretching as far as the eye can see,
Pillars of fire shooting occasionally.
Smoldering.
Foul stench hanging in the air.

Rubble, scraps of cardboard jutting out among rubble.
A notice pasted on collapsed gate posts.
Words written with permanent markers on fallen walls.
Everyone is safe. Contact us at ……..

Grave-posts made of wood scraps.
Here underneath.
No grave-posts.
Here underneath.

Is this Kobe?
Is this the town of Osada? Is this?
Isn't it the town we once saw?
Isn't it the town we abandoned after a glance?

(What have we done ever since?
What have we believed in?
What have we tried to create?)

January 17th, 1995.
46 minutes past 5 o'clock in the morning.
Our town was attacked
by another war after 50 years.

A town shattered.
What sort of a town's image
can we superimpose on this town in front of us,
to move on?

The town of Kobe, the town of Nagata,
The town we love as we live.
We, who live and love
won't leave here.

I hear a bird
from behind the camellia that survived the fire.
I see a cluster of narcissuses blooming
in broken flower pots under collapsed eaves.

Children returning from the evacuation site at the back,
with high-pitched voices and
smiling faces brimming with joy.
As in a dream.
...
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