Pika Don By Genny Lim

Where did the people go?

A flash of white light

in clear, blue sky

A thunder roar

exploding high


The shamisen stops

Doesn’t know the difference

between the song and the singer

The dreamer stops dreaming

Doesn’t know the difference

between sleep or death

One exhale is all it takes

for life to disappear


Like the butterfly

unattached to its pupa

Like the glide of fingers

over koto strings 

or the cry of the shakuhachi

mourning spring

we are born to die

Search for a familiar face

A hint of breath among

abandoned, upturned

carts and smoldering flesh


War or peace?

It’s impossible to know the exact

moment milk turns sour or when

a chrysalis becomes butterfly

Life and death are a wheel

One turn is all it takes for an

empire to vanish like ash


8:15 a.m.

A flash of blinding white light

Pika don

Rain falling in black petals

Hibakusha

Children of the Mushroom

Orphans of the bomb

forbidden to forget

Nine summits collapse

Eight oceans go dry*

One moment is all it takes

for life to disappear

*This piece was written for the 70th Anniversary of the dropping of the Atomic Bombs in Japan. The first atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, at 8:15 a.m. killing 80,000 people instantly and the second bomb, Fat Man, was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9tt at 4 a.m. instantly killing 40,000 people.

pika – flash (of light)

don- bomb, thunder

hibakusha – (lit. ‘explosion-affected people.’)

The quote alludes to enlightenment in Hindu-Buddhism, when the highest level of realization is reached and all matter is transcended, formless and empty.