The Hiroshima Bowl

Cheap ceramic Japanese bowl from the 30s survives the atom bomb (1945).

The Hiroshima Bowl

In the thirties thrown, glazed and fired,
A cheap bowl in a workaday
Bamboo cupboard; it’s white,
Burnt sienna garnishes the rim,
A few shabby ten a yen blooms
Brush the outside.
 
To fire ceramics with glaze
the kiln must reach temperatures
of 1300o Centigrade,

Coarse ceramic still used from the
Cupboard in the Hiroshima suburbs
August 6th, 1945, when Little Boy
Drops out the clear sunny blue sky,
Explodes half kilometre above the city,
Compelling up the heat - 1300o
Six kilometres from city centre.
Gives the bowl a second firing.
One white bowl, its
Melting glaze coagulates over the
Rim, solidifies into crystal drips.   
*
The china expert judges it worthless
Until, cracked and inanimate, it speaks
Of the tens of thousands dying
In Japan, in a heated summer’s day,
Who won’t solidify again
– the bowl now is unpriceable.


D I Harrison
March – May 2014