This poem is my attempt at understanding…

I

I have no regrets.

I did what I was ordered and I did it right.

I have no problem sleeping at night.

At no point could we hear any ragged breaths,

we saved the east from American deaths.

None of our boys would wade into the Rising Sun,

the Shōwa’s children would not fall under the gun.

II

Roar of engines through silver skin,

outside the fuselage, propellers spin.

Ahead of us, the beginning and the end.

A city like Dallas, the houses all in good shape

but to the three hundred thousand people there, no escape.

Straight from the ancient desert was soon to be

a sunrise so bright that no eye could bear to see.

III

The next second, literally, all was smoke and ash.

95,000 lives cease to exist in a monstrous, screaming crash.

Lives were lost, but that was war.

What other reason could we do this for?

Like the president said, “Japan is a terribly cruel and uncivilized nation”

And that is why we flew our station.

IV

In the sky above the city, a mushroom cloud hung,

post-shock silence before the wailing begun.

The radar on board Enola Gay showed the mass

of superheated air and felt the shockwave pass.

As the mission comes to a close, twelve men in khaki

in stunned silence, repose.

“My God, what have we done?”

REST IN PEACE. THE MISTAKE SHALL NOT BE REPEATED.

hiroshima1