War and Peace
A Prose for the anniversary of the end of the Pacific War
When we were cycling on an unpaved road in the countryside of Thailand, there was a roaring sound over our heads coming from behind us. It was an army aircraft passing by. I had never felt any fighter plane so close to me.
It was frightening. My pulse was pumping up. I wanted to stop my bike and cover my ears with my hands, but we didn’t, as if we had to run away. The big shadow of the aircraft on the ground overtook us, and it left.
I remembered that my grandparents used to live under this type of fear every day. Also, there are still lots of people who are living in this circumstance right now in this world.
On Aug. 6th in 1945, the landscape of Hiroshima was entirely destroyed. It was one moment which changed everything. It turned into a nightmare. There was no laughter, no lively chatter, no smell of flowers left. It tore their lives and choked off their dreams.
I visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park last winter. I saw thousands of paper cranes hanging around, which are the symbol of peace and people’s hope.
千代鶴の 夢砕かれし まちは栄えつ
paper cranes dreams which were robbed the town was reborn
When I was writing about Toru Takemitsu(1930–1996) the other day, this video below came up to me.
The lyric was written by Shuntarō Tanikawa(1931-), and the song was originally composed by Toru Takemitsu as a cappella choir in 1965. The blues-like song in the video is an arrangement by Jyoji Sawada(沢田 穣治).
English translation of the lyric is:
Some people say, there is no war without reasons, but somebody’s decision causes tons of people’s suffering, fear and pain. Is there on the earth any reasons which are worth it?
HANA is a Japanese born writer who writes stories and poems in both English and Japanese. If you are an English reader, you can follow her English publications, ‘Etude of Creativity (poetry, haiku, fiction)’ and ‘Japanese Writer (blogs & essays)’ or on Twitter.