Creative Writing - Poem

I wrote this poem as a means to express the horrific realities one specific victim faced during the Hiroshima bombing, the person on the steps of the Sumitomo Bank. It captures their thoughts before the bomb exploded, when they thought it was just an average morning. It illustrates what happened in the milliseconds after the bomb went off, when it seemed like the sun was falling. Lastly, the poem creates a vivid image in our minds of what happened after the bomb exploded, for the individual on the bank steps and for so many others that were near the hypocenter of the bomb.

For context, these shadow images are created when an atomic bomb explodes, due to the intense light and heat that spread out from the hypocenter. The shadow images actually show how the surface looked before the nuclear blast. What wasn’t blocked by an object was essentially bleached, making that small area look like a dark shadow.

Poetry is an intriguing art form and is often used as a means of expression of complex, indescribable emotions that everyday language cannot communicate. It can help us understand and appreciate the world around us on a deeper level.

The tragedies and horrors witnessed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki fall into nearly all the categories listed above. Sometimes, it’s difficult for the human mind to comprehend what happened on August 6 and August 9, 1945.

“A Shadow So Atomic” is a poem composed in effort to capture the thoughts and observations of the individual sitting on the Sumitomo Bank before and after the atomic bomb detonated above Hiroshima.