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in Japan

When I was in Japan I wasn’t . . . but when I was because my uncle didn’t

make it

so I did as best I could which means I really wasn’t there

but I was and have been ever since 1945 before I was born

and I felt Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August before I was finally tossed out at the end of October

When I got there I found myself walking North looking for mountains sensing the nuclear waste behind me

plodding north and for some reason I can’t fathom smiling trusting mountains and clear clean snow were ahead

in my dreams

from middle year poems — Bill Eberle

Bill’s uncle, a U.S. Navy pilot, died in the western Pacific in the summer of 1945.

March 2016     © 2016, Bill Eberle