The Grief of Losing One's Own Flesh and Blood

            by Japanese poet Shinoe Shoda (1910-1965), who had been exposed to the bomb in Hiroshima

The woman goes mad-
She had fled, leaving her husband
And seven children in the blazing fire.

A lone survivor,
She is grieved to be alive,
Longing for her husband.

A 50-year-old woman,
Heavily made up with rouge and powder,
Walks, deranged, crying,
"I want to have a baby. I want to marry."

Under the scorching sun
In the field of debris
Stands a charred tree,
Against which leans
The body of a woman who hanged herself.

Having lost five members of his family,
Driven to the utmost grief,
My elder brother-in-law
Wanders about the ruins night after night.

Oh for surgery to remove the memories of bygone days.