Lasting Impressions of Japan

Barufaldi
June 5, 1990
Narita, Japan

JAPAN is…
Hiroshima, the city of peace rising from radioactive dust of August 6, 1945, anointed with cold, gray reminders of the holocaust, and

the Dome of random piles of fallen brick, cracked mortar, weathered stone and a free-standing twisted stairway to nowhere, symbolizing all that is bad, man’s inhumanity toward man, and

opening painful memories deep with one’s soul, and

the eternal Flame of Peace laying to rest a lost society, and

the tear-laden, unabashed guilt shared by humankind, while

consumers and collectors of things parade by Givinchy-flavored shopping arcades being cajoled with strains of the haunting popular World War II song, “I’ll Be Seeing You,” in discord with the cenotaph, “Let all the souls here rest in peace, for we shall not repeat the evil,” embedded in One’s senses forever,

among unfinished origami-white cranes of good fortune and long life.

* Published in:  Embedded Dreams, The National Library of Poetry, Owings Mills: MD: 1997, p.103