_31. Hiroshima (2)

“I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck.” — Annie Dillard

It’s raining in a city of bells.
The A-bomb dome is a skeleton chime,
a hollow bell in a hesitant field.
The instrument below the children’s peace monument
has its clapper gagged in plastic
but the burial mound beyond it
strikes a hollow note in the steam
with its grass-covered curves.
I think about the “we” that filled
the ground with ashes.
My grandfather was a radio engineer in the war,
equipment made by Bell,
what notes do I inherit?
It’s raining today in Hiroshima
and I don’t know what to do with all the water.
In the museum the hibakusha simply say
“I met with the A-bomb.”
A hundred thousand souls and every one a bell.

remix Friday #4