Below, a poem by Carah Ong.
Atomic Skies Falling
-- Carah Ong
With Hiroshima eyes I weep
for a world self-destructing,
never learning lessons from
the atomic apocalypse of skies falling.
With Nagasaki ears I listen
to the woeful cries of
more and more victims,
each one muted by preemptive Destruction.
With Bikini and Moruroa lips I mourn
so many stories unheard, untold
a legacy of catastrophe
buried by atolls of coral.
With Nevada skin I burn
to tell a Truth obstructed
of desolate Earth and People
united by a cataclysmic obsolescence.
With Lop Nor legs I run
to find a secret crevice
where I lie hidden from a home
on the brink of nuclear precipice.
With Novaya Zemlya and Chernobyl arms I reach
to embrace an untainted vision,
a reality not beholden since
before the Trinity explosion.
Unlike Pokhran and Chagai, I can not celebrate
a new era of annihilation
concealed in formidable disguise
justifying my security by threatening our demise.
There is no shortage of pictures of Nagasaki either. But what is the use of showing them? It is striking that while upright, each of our cities has its own distinctive sights, smells, ambience; flattened, they all look much the same. Will Tel Aviv look any different? Tehran? Karachi? Seoul? Seattle?