The Pain of Hiroshima

A speck in the teeth,
a mote in the eyes,
a thorn stuck in the feet,
take the sleep from my eyes,
my peace of mind.

The death of a relative,
the demise of a loved one,
the passing of an acquaintance,
in fact even the parting of a pet animal,
fill the heart with such pain, such sorrow that,
sleep does not come, even on trying.
From side to side, turning all night.

But the inventors
of that ultimate weapon
which, on the dark night of the Sixth of August, Nineteen Forty-Five,
danced the dance of death in Hiroshima-Nagasaki
and took the sacrifice of over two hundred thousand people,
crippled thousands of people for life.

Did they, for a second even,
get the feeling that what they had done
was not right
If so, then time will not put them in the dock,
but if not then history will never
forgive them.

*"Hiroshima ki Peedha", from Meri kyavan Kavitaein (My 51 Poems) by Atal Behari Vajpayee, Kitab Ghar, New Delhi, !995.Translated byAmitabha Bagchi.

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