Spillway #24, Spring 2016

Hiroshima Redux

“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

R. Oppenheimer, 1965

To have filmed it, would have been to anticipate
its sheer awesome power,

prayed to rest and tested upon the skin of
forgotten children.

To capture, would have been to throw it onto
ground zero, yet then…

at low elevation, perhaps sea level, he sat zazen in
a rock garden canopied

by leafy Japanese maples in early August,
and observed

curvatures of sand and stone swirl like tidal
currents about

an island of small granite placed off center.
A bit further…

he might have walked through a gate as yet crimson,
emblazoned with

four Kanji characters which declare peace comes
to all who

practice mindfulness, but then swept by heat,
the temple burst

into flame, one no human or no god
could ever reframe.

 

“Hiroshima Redux” was nominated by Spillway
for a Pushcart Prize in 2016.