Lesson 4－Part 3
Some called him the luckiest man ever. //
However, /
like many other survivors, /
he was in agony /
for much of his life. //
His feelings were shown in tanka, /
a traditional Japanese poem: /
I think myself a phoenix, /
and I have lived until now. /
But how painful they have been, /
these twenty-four years past. //
“I write poems and songs /
about the atomic bomb,” /
he said. //
“When I’m writing a poem like that, /
I have to think back to those terrible days. /
That hurts, /
really. /
When I write, /
I dream of everything I saw then, /
night in, /
night out.” //
After his son died of cancer at the age of 59, /
Yamaguchi began to talk about his painful experiences /
in public. //
He believed /
that it was his destiny /
to convey those terrible experiences. //
