CRANES OVER HIROSHIMA - Fred Small
from the album "Heart of the Appaloosa"
(c) 1983 Pine Barrens Music
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
As2/
some sleep beneath the rubble, some wake to a different world
from the crying babe will grow a laughing girl
cranes over hiroshima - white and red and gold
flicker in the sunlight like a million vanished souls
As2/
i will fold these cranes of paper to a thousand - one by one
and i'll fly away when i'm done
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 grow ever more often and the dizziness always returns
and the word that she hears is leukemia and it burns
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 fourty-four
till the morning her trmbling fingers can't fold any more
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:
this is our cry (no more hiroshima)
this is our prayer (no more nagasaki)
peace in the world (peace in the world)