Chapter 316: The Covenant of Peace

Proclaim a dawn that crowns the world with light, The chains of hate lie shattered in the dust. The crowds arise, and labor claims its right, From forge and field their hopeful banners thrust. Yet scarlet suns twice scorched the mourning earth, Their silent fire wrote horror on the sky; But hope endured where ash replaced the sand, And swore that war’s last ember here would die. At Hiroshima, August's sixth was clear; At eight fifteen Enola Gay flew by; With Tibbets at the helm, the bomb fell near: A sun of uranium filled the sky. The offices that kept the city's names Were in the fire, the paper and the ink; Seventy thousand died within the flames, And twice that many by the year's last brink. Out in the desert one test came before, But no test of a city, only sand; A notice told Japan to end the war; Unanswered when the fire came on the land. On August's eighth the Soviets made war; Their armies crossed Manchuria at dawn; Kokura's aim lay under cloud's grey floor; The plane passed over, dropped not, and went on. On Nagasaki at eleven-two, With Sweeney flying, plutonium fell, Off its mark, over Urakami's view; The hills held back the blast, but not the knell. Koreans brought to both the cities died, Tens of thousands, burned beneath the same fire; The hibakusha, touched, lived on beside; Each named; no sum shall serve as their pyre. Call not Kokura's cloud a judgment sent, Nor Hiroshima's morning, clear and bright; A list was made; the sky kept no intent; Say which the city, and which hour, which light. A crackling voice on August’s fervent air Confessed defeat across the empire’s seas; In Times Square strangers, dazzled, found a dare, And sealed a vow with one unbridled squeeze. The second of September set its fate; Steel decks became the altar of release. The working world inhaled and sealed its fate, Proclaiming labor’s covenant of peace. From Pittsburgh mills to London’s river docks, The union drums beat loud in molten halls; Red banners rolled like quick-forged iron shocks, And bosses felt the tremor in their walls. Kartik lamps glowed through India’s dark night, A widow smiled, her children at her side; As sparks like comets chased the ghosts to flight, And whispered freedom swelling in the tide. In ruined fields the Shintō harvest bowed, White grains were heaped before a broken shrine; The farmer wept yet offered thanks aloud, For seeds of hope still quickened in the brine. In Nuremberg the gavel cracked like doom, The plague of hate was named before the earth; Twelve shadows waited judgment in the room, And heard mankind demand their curse’s birth. December’s pilgrims gathered on the sand, Indian scholar singing promised land; Trader from Malay knelt upon the sand, Their voices mingled, binding sand to land. Eight fragile lights renewed a Warsaw room, The youngest played where once the shadows lay; Their mother sang against remembered gloom, And turned the night to promise with her pray. In ruined towns the bells returned to life, Their silver peals stitched silence into song; Young soldiers danced beside a wooden fife, And swore no tyrant’s reign would last as long. In Seoul the crowds lit torches in the street, Their flags proclaimed the empire’s yoke was done; Yet lines were drawn where foreign soldiers meet, And dawn arose upon a severed sun. Across the plains of China drums of peace Replaced the clash of empire’s hungry blade; Yet rival banners gathered, never ceased, And thunder warned of storms that had not fled. In Tokyo the courtroom lights burned slow, Two years of witness weighed each mortal crime; Yet on the throne a sacred ember glowed, And judgment blurred along the edge of time. On New Year's day I set down my decree: "Not akitsumikami," then a wink; Still arahitogami, plain to see; Nothing has changed, whatever you may think. So ended war and dawned the workers’ dream, With lamps and bells and grains beneath the sky; The plague of hate dissolved like distant steam, And human hands began to build on high.