On August 6, 1945, the first atomic bomb, ‘Little Boy’ was dropped on Hiroshima. Three days later, Nagasaki was battered by another bomb. The devastation continues. Mitali’s peace poem is to heal the deep wounds. An exclusive for Different Truths.

Craters in the sky pour
sunrise lava. Unbidden
molten fire spews out
of the bowels of clouds.
 
Will these also set aflame
fiery rivers underground,
in hearts seething with
pent-up frustrations?
 
A mountain isolated stands
and blows smoke rings of
Merapi-angst. Clouds of
mushroom vent hatred,
 
anger, venom — weaponry
that destroys life on Earth.
Can we forsake our home?
A bird tweeting peace and love,
 
flies into sunbathed horizons
where human arrogance loses
its gaze in the brilliance of the
shine of nature’s nuclear fusion.

References

Mt Merapi is the most active volcano in Indonesia.

https://www.npr.org/2021/01/27/961066060/indonesias-most-active-volcano-erupts

Mushroom clouds were vented by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki blasts.

https://www.atomicarchive.com/media/photographs/hiroshima/mushroom-cloud.html

http://100photos.time.com/photos/mushroom-cloud-over-nagasaki-lieutenant-charles-levy

Nature’s nuclear fusion in the Sun

Visuals from the Internet

Mitali Chakravarty

Mitali Chakravarty is a citizen of the world. She writes and edits with the hope of creating an equitable Earth that transcends artificial barriers created by manmade institutions. In that spirit, she runs an online journal called Borderless. She has been widely anthologised and published. Her life revolves as a mother and wife around her two sons and husband.