Nagasaki crows

It	remains possible to believe there
was	nothing anyone could do about
the	melted bottles, burnt coins etc … as for the
corpses	lying in the streets and wreckage
of	Nagasaki, we tend to forget how
the	body resists history; we pretend that
Koreans	look different, or
that	victims are all the same, even when they
remained	silent, we could hear their voices,
scattered	across the unbelievably blue sky, hanging
in	trees, or from twisted crosses, populating
the	horror invisibly, keeping time, giving
ruins	a human aspect, a curtain of dead flesh
longer	than a shroud, sadder
than	silent bells, more dignified than
any	surrender, never to be buried like the
others.

One	day we shall know their names, the
reason	for their being there, that morning. Death
is	just another criminal, an adversary
that	does not need a motive,
although	we may wish to assign it one. The
many	cries, the stunned desolation of this
Japanese	port town in the moonlight – its
people	scattered like broken glass. Even the walls that
survived	bear shadows like execution drawings, and inside
the	museum, the pathetic legacy of
atomic	testing around the world lingers. We’re still
bombing,	while they sue for peace. Of course, it’s
very	hard to know who suffered the most. Was it the
few	who remained to bear witness, or the
Koreans	who disappeared? It’s hard to know what exactly
survived.

There	among the dead horses and railway girders,
was	an abandonment of sanity, from which
nothing	could be salvaged, despite the crows
we	saw circling in the blood-red skies. After this,
could	anything grow from evil? There was nothing left to
do.

Crows	are sacred in many cultures. That morning, as they
flew	about, making their raids, we sat with our heads
down	between shame and annihilation. Meaning existed
in	their grim and tidy circles, their flexing
flocks	and dusted beaks. They grew fat and sick
from	the flesh of the Koreans. We watched
the	dim carnival play itself out, while the
sky	burned into stillness
and	the shrieks grew faint. Scarily, we
ate	rice cakes sent from surrounding towns, as
the	rare medics wandered about dispensing water. Our
eyeballs	remained fixed in a groundward stare. Out
of	nowhere, the crows came again, seeking
the	remains, the plastic souls of those
Korean	dead with no names. They were no longer simply
corpses.