Editor’s note: This is part of a series on hibakusha who responded to a survey by The Asahi Shimbun, The Chugoku Shimbun and The Nagasaki Shimbun on the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings.

YOKOHAMA--Naoto Kakimoto has penned hundreds of poems, many of them inspired by his mother, whom he last saw as he left his home in Nagasaki on that fateful morning in 1945.

Even 80 years ago, when he was 15 years old, writing poems was his passion.

As a fourth-year student at Nagasaki Prefectural Keiho Junior High School, Kakimoto was a member of a poetry group at the factory where he and his classmates were mobilized during the war.

On Aug. 9, which coincidentally was the deadline for the group members to submit their works, his mother wrapped his handwritten poem with his lunch, saying, “It is a beautiful poem.”

That was their final conversation.

During an interview in Yokohama in May, Kakimoto recalled another heartbreaking event as he made his way home that day.

Kakimoto was desperately searching for a path to take him home in the city strewn with rubble, billowing black smoke and bloodied corpses.

A man lying on the ground called out to him as he was passing by an air-raid shelter.

A large chunk of glass was embedded in his chest, its surface slick and dark with blood.

The man had tried to yank it out himself, but his hands shook too much.

“Can you pull this out for me?” he asked.

When Kakimoto took hold of the shard and applied pressure, the man screamed in pain and lost consciousness.

Kakimoto renewed his grip and pulled with all his might. The moment the glass came free with a sickening sound, blood gushed out in torrents.

The man’s body went limp. He was gone.

A child, seemingly of elementary school age, ran to the man’s side, crying out, “Daddy! Daddy!”

“He is dead.” A voice nearby snapped him back to reality.

All Kakimoto could do was to repeat: “I am sorry. I am sorry.”

Eighty years on, Kakimoto’s voice trembled, choked with sobs, as he recounted the episode. “There was nothing I could do. Nothing at all.”

When the atomic bomb detonated over the city, Kakimoto was working at a factory about 1.3 kilometers from the hypocenter, handling tasks related to aerial torpedoes.

His world turned crimson in a flash.

“I saw a red sphere spreading through the ceiling,” he recalled.

He instinctively dropped to the ground as searing heat from the shockwave swept over him.

When Kakimoto cautiously raised his head in the eerie silence, he found the factory had collapsed. 

Kakimoto headed for home, about 350 meters from the hypocenter.

As he followed the river leading to the house, he came across piles of naked bodies, all swollen and discolored as if made made of lead.

Covering his nose and mouth with his protective hood, he tried to press forward but kept tripping over bodies.

Kakimoto finally reached his home the following day. His father had been burned to a cinder. His eldest sister’s limbs were nothing but ashes.

With his father’s charred pocket watch in his hand, Kakimoto wandered the city day after day in search of his mother.

Each time he came across a body that resembled her, he would check for the gold tooth that would help to identify her.

The war soon ended, but he would never see her again.

Kakimoto continued writing poems about his longing for his mother as well as his atomic bombing experiences.

In 1995, the 50th anniversary of the attack, he self-published a collection of 500 or so poems, whose title roughly translates as, “Town of ash, Nagasaki: Mother, where are you?”

In his response to the nationwide hibakusha survey, Kakimoto said he was writing poems chronicling his experiences as an atomic bomb survivor.

A new collection of about 300 poems will come out this summer.

“The issue of nuclear weapons may never be resolved even until the end of humanity,” Kakimoto said. “It is that deeply rooted and serious, but I want people, even one or two, to read my poems and know how much suffering, sorrow and irreparable damage nuclear weapons can inflict on people.”

The grandfather of this reporter, who was born in 1929, the same year as Kakimoto, was also exposed to the atomic bombing of Nagasaki as a mobilized student worker. He died eight years ago.

When asked what a grandson of a hibakusha can do, Kakimoto said, holding a hand to his hearing aid: “I want you to understand and carry on the sincere desire of hibakusha, who have worked tirelessly toward the abolition of nuclear weapons.”

At the end of the interview, Kakimoto handed the visitor a sheet of manuscript paper on which he had written a “waka” poem.

“Even after 100 years/ I will continue to speak of my hope/ For a world without nuclear weapons/ And for eternal peace”