Hiroshima

Where was he that day, my father?

That summer he was in Japan

Learning the country's beauty

Starting to love forever the Isle 

of Miyajima, with its bright red torii gate

he brought his love home

Called our house Sayonara

Taught me to eat with chopsticks 

And to count in Japanese

Gave me Japanese boxes and carvings

And yet, when I was 9, he showed me

Photos of Hiroshima, afterwards,

Told me of how he was a Marine 

chasing Japanese colonels

For war crimes courts.

What beauty did he see to override 

the cruelty, the bombs, PoW and refugee camps

So that he generated in his daughter

Not the visceral hatred so many brought home, 

but a lifelong admiration of its culture?

Lmc 6 August 2015