Cranes Over Hiroshima

The baby blinks her eyes as the sun falls from the sky
She feels the stings of a thousand fires as the city around her dies
Some sleep beneath the rubble, some wake to a different world
From the crying babe will grow a laughing girl.
Ten summers fade to autumn, ten winters’snows have passed
She’s a child of dreams and dances, she’s a racer strong and fast
But the headaches come ever more often and the dizziness always returns
And the word that she hears is leukemia, and it burns.
Cranes over Hiroshima, white and red and gold
Flicker in the sunlight like a million vanished souls
I will fold these cranes of paper to a thousand one by one
And I’ll fly away when I am done.
Her ancestors knew the legend--if you make a thousand cranes
From squares of colored paper, it will take the pain away
With loving hands she folds them, six hundred forty-four
Till the morning her trembling fingers can’t fold anymore.
Her friends did not forget her--crane after crane they made
Until they reached a thousand and laid them upon her grave
People from everywhere gathered, together a prayer they said
And they wrote the words in granite so none can forget:
FINAL CHORUS:
This is our cry, this is our prayer, peace in the world.