Ground Zero

At the Great Fellowship Conference,
        two participants met and spoke,
in the Great Hall of Remembrance
        where all past memories awoke.

Where did you die? asked one
politely to the  other.
        (In a place that became known
         as Ground Zero,)
You don't mean, my brother,
to say there's been another!
        (Yes, early one morning
         in 2001, in New York City.
         What about you?
         Where did you die?)
In a place that WAS Ground Zero,
Early one morning,
         in 1945, in Nagasaki.

I was working that morning,
         (So was I.)
when suddenly, the sky became
a wind of pure light.
         (yes, from the sky came
          a thing of pure hell.)
I burned. I never saw that night.
          (Neither did I. I fell.)

In the Great Hall of Remembrance,
they held each other and cried,
accepting sorrow in deliverance
of those who had lived and died.


 
Paige Chia
 

More Poems By Paige