Monument to Tamiki Hara (Monument to Haruo Sato's poem)

Date erected: November 15, 1951. Poet Hara Tamiki was 40 years old when the atomic bomb was dropped on his childhood home in Noborimachi. Having lost his beloved wife the previous year, he was devastated by loneliness and despair, but continued to write works conveying the devastation of the bomb, believing it was his mission as a survivor. However, he was disappointed by the expansion of the Korean War and President Truman's statement that "the use of the atomic bomb is a possibility," and on March 13, 1951, he lay down on the tracks of the Tokyo Chuo Line and took his own life. He was 46 years old. The monument was erected with its back to the stone wall of the ruins of Hiroshima Castle, but in November of the year Tamiki died, it became a target for stone-throwing by heartless people, and the ceramic panel on the front became full of holes, and the copper plate on the back was also stolen. The current monument was restored and relocated on July 29, 1967. A draft poem written by Tamiki himself is carved into the black granite: "Carved into the stone of a distant day, its shadow falling into the sand, crumbling away, the illusion of a single flower in the middle of heaven and earth."