Masao Okabe's Frottage Sites

When Albert Einstein was asked to submit a paper in support of Germany's World War I adventure he sent 3 sheets explaining why he was against wars 'since they had asked' for his comments. Even from this they censored 3 paragraphs.

Throughout 2007 and 2008 the following poem was one of half a dozen I sent to the Poets Against War website at regular intervals. The site was at http://www.poetsagainstthewar.org and it hosted many thousands of poems sent in from all over the world  (sadly it no longer appears to exist).

I seem to recall  this was a poem of mine that they highlighted  as one of their 'poems of the month'.

It's about nuclear war. And about the past and the future.


Masao Okabe's Frottage Sites

Okabe's hand blurs rapidly over a surface
and an image appears on paper;
platform stones leave unique prints
just like hands or fingers.

Today he's fetched a row of stones to show you,
his testament in stone from Old Ujina Station;
hard stones that have survived
from the morning of the dark face of the light.

And he has a map to show you -
with its delta rivers coloured red
and marked with concentric rings to indicate
that the target will be 5 miles wide.

Okabe took his other frottages at City Hall
and Hijiyama Hill,
at the Red Cross Hospital
and the Post Office Bank,
and at many other regular spots
back home
inside those rings.

That is only Okabe's way
to ask
if there's a future
for our past.

c-2007