Sadako Kurihara, A-bomb poet, dies

[struggle4progress]

The Asahi Shimbun

Survivor devoted her life to ban-the-bomb message.

HIROSHIMA--Staunch anti-war poet Sadako Kurihara, herself a survivor of the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima, died at her home here Sunday night, family members said. She was 92. <snip>

Kurihara was at home, about 4 kilometers from ground zero, when the Aug. 6, 1945, nuclear flash became part of history.<snip>

``Kurihara was very determined to express her furious hatred of nuclear weapons and to protest their use,'' said Takashi Hiraoka, a former mayor of Hiroshima. ``Her will to protest never faded, even in her later years.'' <snip>

The baby girl described in Kurihara's famous poem survived and now runs an izakaya restaurant in Hiroshima.

http://www.asahi.com/english/nation/TKY200503080131.html


We Shall Bring Forth New Life

by Sadako Kurihara, August 1945 in Hiroshima
translated by Wayne Lammers

It was night in the basement of a broken building.
Victims of the atomic bomb
Crowded into the candleless darkness,
Filling the room to overflowing--
The smell of fresh blood, the stench of death,
The stuffiness of human sweat, the writhing moans--
When, out of the darkness, came a wondrous voice.
"Oh! The baby's coming !" it said.
In the basement turned to a living hell
A young woman had gone into labor!
The others forgot their own pain in their concern :
What could they do for her, having not even a match
To bring light to the darkness?
Then came another voice : "I am a midwife.
I can help her with the baby."
It was a woman who had been moaning in pain only moments before.
And so, a new life was born
In the darkness of that living hell.
And so, the midwife died before the dawn,
Still soaked in the blood of her own wounds.
We shall give forth new life !
We shall bring forth new life !
Even to our death.

http://www.nevadadesertexperience.org/HC_poems.html#kurihara