by Jonathan Chan
to tighten. it will not slip off, as
if a pair of gloves. in Hiroshima,
the rubble has been preserved.
a shadow remains on a carved concrete
step. the rubble remains in ways that
flesh will not. paper cranes surround
a statue of a girl. how the children have
remembered the children. spirits
cry out for water. we remain at the
edge of snow. the skies once ignited
in fire and fell in sticky, black rain.
the rivers were once choked
with the dead, given back to the skies
in bulk cremations. cloud columns
are long dissipated. the buses run
on time and the okonomiyaki sizzles
on a grill. an old man pinches and pulls
at his cheek. how can suffering past
obscure a suffering present? my
breath has begun to turn to vapour.
it brushes past numbed palms.
at the temple, the devoted clap
twice and shake a bell, rousing
the gods with a prayer for health.
at the museum: a story of a woman
burying christmas sugar, forgetting
how the earth is damp.
Jonathan Chan: In December 2024, on the recommendation of a friend, I spent a day in Hiroshima during a journey through Japan. Beneath the city’s seamless surface, the weight of its history—its devastation, its entanglement in the brutalities of Japanese imperialism, and the unprecedented suffering wrought by bombardment—struck me as a source of profound moral complexity. Throughout the day I listened to the music of Ryuichi Sakamoto and John Hersey’s Hiroshima (1946). The poem “winter approaching” arose from my visit to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and the Children’s Peace Monument, as well as from the work of the Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese grassroots organisation founded by atomic bomb survivors. It alludes to the incredulity expressed by Co-Chair Toshiyuki Mimaki at the organisation’s receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2024, awarded in preference to activists for peace in Palestine. The juxtaposition of a destruction past and a destruction present in Gaza—especially as borne by children—formed the ground from which the poem emerged, a ground only deepened by the increasingly dire situation in Gaza, from indiscriminate mass killings to the obstruction of humanitarian aid, a crisis that demands continued engagement, vigilance, and urgent pressure for an end to the genocide. The poem’s final line invokes Louise Bourgeois’s “Plate 8” in He Disappeared into Complete Silence (1947), as encountered at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo. “winter approaching” first appeared in bright sorrow (Landmark, 2025).
Published: Tuesday 30 September 2025
Jonathan Chan is a writer, editor, and translator of poetry and essays. His debut collection, going home (Landmark, 2022), was a finalist for the Singapore Literature Prize in 2024. His second collection, bright sorrow (Landmark, 2025), is forthcoming. He serves as the managing editor of the poetry archive poetry.sg. His recent work has been deeply influenced by Refaat Alareer, Reginald Dwayne Betts, and Shze-Hui Tjoa. More of his writing may be found at jonbcy.wordpress.com.