Comments on: August 6, 1945 Hiroshima: For Those Who Came, But Could Not Stay

By: Hiroshima Mon Amour « Around The Sphere

Hiroshima Mon Amour « Around The Sphere — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 15:52:52 +0000

[...] Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes brings the poetry at Moderate Voice. Two posts from Greg Mitchell about the press and Hiroshima, here and here [...]

By: gallantKnight

gallantKnight — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 01:04:23 +0000

On days like today, I hear the cries of anguish, that rise from the depths of my soul, for even at this late date connected to the shocking misery inflicted on gentle, quiet, unsuspecting innocence. Nothing can mask the shame I feel for the pain and suffering handed out under the pretence of my protection. Who decided I need protecting from precious children? The mere thought of what happened the day that life on earth changed forever saddens my heart. Your poem and thoughts give me hope that there is still some goodness and beauty in the world. Thank you.

By: jeainnj

jeainnj — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 12:48:00 +0000

“The intentional firebombing of German cities took a toll as great as Hiroshima and was directly targeted to produce mass casualties.”

Let us also remember the Japanese and Germans started the war. A war of conquest for them. A war of defense for the Allies.

By: Nabuquduriuzhur

Nabuquduriuzhur — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:13:13 +0000

all too true.

By: Nabuquduriuzhur

Nabuquduriuzhur — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:01:51 +0000

No one remembers the 17 to 20 million Chinese, Burmese, Malay, Indonesians and other people that were systematically killed by the Japanese in Southeast Asia in creating and maintaining their Southeast Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. Two atomic bombs stopped that horrific carnage.

By: mikestorm

mikestorm — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 04:04:55 +0000

Can we also remember that 9 million German women and children were systematically murdered often in the same death camps used by the Nazis. Millions of German women were gang raped repeatedly

The intentional firebombing of German cities took a toll as great as Hiroshima and was directly targeted to produce mass casualties.

Lessons about the horrors of war? No!

By: newtothis

newtothis — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 03:04:21 +0000

I felt this poem was speaking to me, and I am so ashamed of a choice I made years ago.
There is something about a child that makes everything new again. I think it must be their innocence.

By: August 6 1945 Hiroshima « Simple Gestures

August 6 1945 Hiroshima « Simple Gestures — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 23:38:15 +0000

[...] August 6, 1945 Hiroshima: For Those Who Came, But Could Not Stay (themoderatevoice.com) [...]

By: ordinarysparrow

ordinarysparrow — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 22:42:33 +0000

one such as Dr. E with eyes open often see from another perspective. . . .it is a strange thing. . .a holy thing. . .a blessing that some have even felt as a curse at times. . . when the heart is close enough to all of these, and those too, the mind and the arms grow big enough to embrace every child, every mother, every father beyond what was playing on the latest version of good guys and bad guys in the small world. . .

so often they say what others can only hear deep down, through lines of poetry that slip in through the small cracks in our hard head, or perhaps the words massage an old scar tissue that remembers us what it is to be humankind. . .often they gently nudge and whisper, "wake up sleepy heads." . . . .it is not about who is right or who is wrong. . .

poetry in small black print on white page may be one of the last breaths of subtle color and blazing light too often forgotten beside the latest model of big flat screen digital color "gizzmoe" TV that has never been so full of black and white programming. . . .

thanks for you Dr. E. . . .

By: Lit3Bolt

Lit3Bolt — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 20:52:23 +0000

I think our grisly fascination of the atomic bomb is that it's the ultimate symbol of War, a product of countless manhours of effort to erase an equally countless number of lives and dreams. For individual bombs and air raids, despite there being thousands and thousands of them, you could still dream that it could miss, and you could live, and that you could rebuild afterward. In the atomic bomb, there's only a singular flash and cleansing shockwave and heat, as directed and discriminate as a hurricane or an earthquake. And even if you do survive, Pestilance and Famine come right behind War in the form of deadly fallout.

So while it may seem strange to consider, we hold the dead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in higher regard than that of Dresden or Tokyo or Moscow or London or Pearl Harbor because they have shown us in horrible detail of the price of total War in the future.

By: abjzofk

abjzofk — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 20:44:04 +0000

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By: jeainnj

jeainnj — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 19:51:06 +0000

BTW, I should've said this earlier since I write poetry too. This is a really good piece of work.

By: Slamfu

Slamfu — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 19:43:25 +0000

Although I support the use of the bombs to end WWII, and even though it can't even be called the worst thing to happen in that war, I think the imagery serves a valid purpose. It was the first time we ever annihilated that many people in such a short time. War is the worst thing we can do, and anything that serves to bring people to reason rather than violence is a good thing in the end. Lets face it, no two nations with nukes have ever gone to war.

When was the last time you could say Europe was free of war for a 70 year stretch? Sure, the major powers have come within a hairs breadth of it, but no one has taken the plunge. And before you think its not the imagery, remember WWII was started not long after WWI, which at the time was the war to end all wars. It took something a bit more horrific, something the people at home could identify with, to really bring about lasting peace through fear.

By: jeainnj

jeainnj — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 19:05:44 +0000

Poetry, vanderleun, isn't SUPPOSED to be about history.

By: LionAslan

LionAslan — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 19:04:00 +0000

you'd have to have an actual factual opinion vanderleun, not just your own 'magical' thinking as a comment.

By: vanderleun

vanderleun — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 18:52:27 +0000

Too bad the poem, moving as it is, is not informed by actual history rather than magical history.

By: tidbits

tidbits — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 18:04:32 +0000

Wow !!!!!!!

By: D. E.Rodriguez

D. E.Rodriguez — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 17:46:38 +0000

Thank you so much, dr e. You have felt it all, and shared it with us

Dorian

By: kathykattenburg

kathykattenburg — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 14:52:50 +0000

Dr e., thank you for that beautiful poem. It had actually slipped my mind that today is the anniversary of that terrible day 64 years ago. Thank you for reminding us. Sometimes remembering is the most radical thing one can do. Thank you.

By: fractal

fractal — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 14:36:08 +0000

Dr. cpe, thank you for reminding us of your generation and the powerful impact Hiroshima had on values toward peace and social justice and above all NO MORE WAR!

And a quote from book entitled SGI President Daisaku Ikeda's Addresses in the United Sates: June/July 1996: "the great Norwegian folk poet Arnulf Overland (1889-1968) who fought against the Nazis during World War II who writes: A people can be conquered, but their freedom of spirit can never be destroyed, nor their thoughts ever bound! Only those without weapons possess an inexhaustible wellspring; only the spirit triumphs!" Your words remind us that your SPIRIT calls us to remember the importance of peace and social justice and NO MORE WAR.

Thank you for your powerful poem and words of wisdom!

Mariposa