YOSANO AKIKO'S PACIFISM

Disclosed by the snow
a cat returns from fields
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
we cannot recognize
his scrawny coat
as he sits about the living room
in the corner shadows
at many knees full of gloom
even as the late Yosani Akiko
of Japan warned
in her colloquies and poetry
wondered what it was all for
in forgiving the span of war.