Hiroshima Day
It was only one bomb
that destroyed the city,
the old city of Hiroshima, buried now
deeper than Sian or Samarkind were buried
in the sinking sands—blotted out
by that quantum-leap into the skies
when the fission-fostered blast
blew out the one small flame of hope
that man had built his empires on.
One bomb; the city was gone;
And with it the allotted world we knew.
Out of the rubble and ashes of Hiroshima
a new world must somehow climb—
not made of steel and steam,
nor steps to the old shrines; not run
by the men of grease and strain who walled
those empires with the granite of their pride.
Their one small flame has died.
Now, standing among the ruins of the old world,
somehow we must learn to build
one world for humankind.