Chapter Fourteen – Japan Part 3 (8/25)
I went to the Nagasaki Museum of Art. There was a special exhibit there called War in the Eyes of Artists; from Goya to several Nagasaki artists. Though I had deliberately avoided visiting the epicenters of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for reasons I have already expressed, seeing this exhibit at the museum was just as intense. For this log I am going to highlight a display I found most moving. I am including the youtube address where it can be seen and heard. Place address here The display starts with a poem and an illustration. Both commemorate the bombing of Nagasaki. After viewing the illustration and reading the poem you enter a small theater to sit down and watch an animation of the illustration set to music. All the children, adults, animals and Shinto like creatures that are in the illustration (in a huge tree) come to life and move to the rhythm of the music. A male voice sings overall, lyrics that may have to do with the poem, written by singer/songwriter Masaharu Fujiyama and entitled, “Kusunoki; Blown by the 500-year Wind.” The illustration is the work of an artist named Junaida. The lyrics were inspired by the Kusunoki (camphor trees), which survived the atomic bomb.
I copied the poem while I was at the museum and hope I got it right, as follows.
My soul roots in this land
That will never be decayed and fallen down
I have lived on this hill
Over six hundred years, blown by the
wind of times
Along with one legged gate of Shinto
shrine broken by blast wave
I have seen human's life, joys and sorrows going through
My soul would never have been disrupted
Even my trunk were broken and burned
Blowing in the gentle wind and blast wave
Being exposed to the early summer rain and the black rain
I have reached up to the sky
My soul has rooted in this land that will never be decayed and fallen down
My soul would never have been disrupted even once my trunk were broken and burned
My soul has rooted in this land
The soul will keep singing in the wind.
