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.

Chorus:

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.

Chorus

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