Cranes Over Hiroshima
        By Fred Small


The baby blinks her eye, as the sun falls from the sky,

She feels the sting of a thousand fires, as the city around her dies.

Some sleep beneath the rubble, some wake to a different world,

From the crying babe will grow a laughing girl.

Ten summers fade to Autumn, ten winters' snows have passed,
She's a child of dreams and dances, she's a racer strong and fast.
But the headaches come ever more often, and the dizziness always returns,
And the word she hears is leukemia, and it burns.

chorus:

Cranes over Hiroshima, white and red and gold,

Flicker in the sunlight, like a million vanished souls.

I will fold the cranes of paper, to a thousand one by one.

And I'll fly away, when I am done.

Her ancestors knew the legend, if you make a thousand cranes.
From squares of colored paper, it will take away the pain.
With loving hands she folds them, 644
Till the morning her trembling hands can't fold anymore.

cho.

Her friend did not forget her, crane after crane they made,
Until they reached a thousand, and they laid them on her grave.
People from everywhere gathered, and together a prayer they said,
And they wrote the words in granite so none may forget.

This is our cry, this is our prayer, peace in the world.
This is our cry, this is our prayer, peace in the world.
This is our cry, this is our prayer, peace in the world.