This week 73 years ago, the American B-29 bomber dropped the first deployed atomic bombs, Little Boy and Fat Man, on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The blast and resulting radiation poisoning took the lives of over 200,000 people. ‘Black rain’ is the term used to describe the appearance of the nuclear fallout that fell from the sky after the bombings. The following poem is my response to this controversial event that shook the course of history.

Black Rain

I

The rain had come
and it was black.
Children cried,
the fires burned,
and the rain
singed the ashes.
Tyranny rose,
civilization fell,
with the darkened skies.

II

The rain had come
and it was black.
The black rain passed.
And so did the people.
Thousand by thousand
they departed forever.

III

The rain had come
and it was black.
How many years
of iniquity
before the people learn?
How many lives
swept away
by the winds of war?
As rain fell
that fateful day,
the pride,
the hope,
the will,
of a people
was crushed.

IV

The rain had come
and it was black.
And a nation fell.
But the fallen
will always
rise again.
Brick by brick,
soul by soul,
was the nation
rebuilt.

V

The rain had come
and it was black.
A people suffered,
a people feared,
a people torn,
but not defeated.
The rain had come.
It was black.
But the people 
emerged strong.