Gone In A Moment
A city, a life, several thousands of lives,
Children, teachers, husbands and wives.
Buildings, bridges, roads and trees,
Everything alite, it's thousands of degrees.
What stood, what was, will never be again,
There's fear of everything, even the rain.
How could it ever come to this?
Children just dropped off at school, a mother's final kiss.
Science and politics fused together,
What was the justification when lives are taken forever?
Too much power and the plot was lost,
Lives were played with at whatever the cost.
Carelessly agreeing when the stakes were high.
Were there not enough people in the know asking why?
Miraculously survivors found the strength to rebuild,
Despite friends and family having been killed.
Nature fought too, trees began to regrow.
But with so much destroyed, the progress was slow.
People asked when will politicians awake,
And admit that they made a terrible mistake?
There was one release button and no turning back,
Who on earth deserved such an attack?
When such devastation is obvious to see,
The existence of nuclear weapons today is a mystery to me.
There are, in fact, no words to describe such horror,
No words I know of that can compensate the sorrow.
If only people could look back and evaluate,
And learn from the past before it's too late.
(Written on the train back to Tokyo after visiting the Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima)
