INTRODUCTION 
In the dying afternoon, I wander dying round the Park of Peace.
It is right, this squat, dead place, with its left-over air
Of an abandoned International Trade and Tourist Fair.
The stunted trees are wrapped in straw against the cold.
The gardeners are old, old women in blue bloomers, white aprons,
Survivors weeding the dead brown lawns around the Children’s
Monument.
A hideous pile, the Atomic Bomb Explosion Centre, freezing cold,
‘Includes the Peace Tower, a museum containing
Atomic-melted slates and bricks, photos showing
What the Atomic Desert looked like, and other
Relics of the catastrophe.’
The other relics:
The ones that made me weep;
The bits of burnt clothing,
The stopped watches, the torn shirts.
The twisted buttons,
The stained and tattered vests and drawers,
The ripped kimonos and charred boots,
The white blouse polka-dotted with atomic rain, indelible,
The cotton summer pants the blasted boys crawled home in, to bleed
And slowly die.
Remember only these.
They are the memorials we need.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Harrison, Michael and Christopher Stuart-Clark, Eds. 1999. ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF POETRY FOR CHILDREN. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
EXTENSION
Display photos of the Japanese cities before the tragedy. Then show a photo of an atomic explosion mushroom cloud and photos of the cities afterward.
POEM
No More Hiroshimas (excerpt)
By James Kirkup
No More Hiroshimas (excerpt)
By James Kirkup
In the dying afternoon, I wander dying round the Park of Peace.
It is right, this squat, dead place, with its left-over air
Of an abandoned International Trade and Tourist Fair.
The stunted trees are wrapped in straw against the cold.
The gardeners are old, old women in blue bloomers, white aprons,
Survivors weeding the dead brown lawns around the Children’s
Monument.
A hideous pile, the Atomic Bomb Explosion Centre, freezing cold,
‘Includes the Peace Tower, a museum containing
Atomic-melted slates and bricks, photos showing
What the Atomic Desert looked like, and other
Relics of the catastrophe.’
The other relics:
The ones that made me weep;
The bits of burnt clothing,
The stopped watches, the torn shirts.
The twisted buttons,
The stained and tattered vests and drawers,
The ripped kimonos and charred boots,
The white blouse polka-dotted with atomic rain, indelible,
The cotton summer pants the blasted boys crawled home in, to bleed
And slowly die.
Remember only these.
They are the memorials we need.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Harrison, Michael and Christopher Stuart-Clark, Eds. 1999. ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF POETRY FOR CHILDREN. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
EXTENSION
Tell the children of Sadako Sasaki, a Japanese girl who lived in Hiroshima and was only 2 years old when the bomb was dropped. When she developed leukemia, “the atom bomb disease” at age 11, she folded origami paper cranes during her hospital stay, spurred on by an old Japanese saying that whoever folded 1,000 cranes would receive a wish. Sadako died at age 12. A statue of her holding a golden crane stands in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. Pass out instructions (found in the back of Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr. 1977. New York: Putnam’s Sons) and have the children fold a paper crane in remembrance of Sadako and all of the children who died from the effects of the atomic bomb. Have them join people all over Japan in celebrating August 6 as Peace Day.
Photo courtesy of http://images.search.yahoo.com.
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