The bones of the coast still crack at night,
Empty windows stare from salt-bleached homes,
Rainfall weeps in radioactive patterns,
Mothers whisper to silence, counting days by ghosts.
Children’s laughter trapped in broken mirrors,
Footprints fading, sunflowers shivering in dust,
Once there were lanterns bobbing in the rice fields—
Now they drift, memory embers, lost in the rust.
I watched the tide swallow fathers and factories,
Steel and skin peeled away in the caesium wind,
A clock runs backwards in every old schoolhouse,
Hands clutching hope, too cracked to mend.
Rumor moves through the black-iced valleys—
They say the fish learned to speak in the dark,
And we dream of blue warnings splintering the sky,
Where once we prayed, now the rivers spark.
Count every fallen hair, tally every empty plate,
Our hearts hang on wires, humming through the barricade,
I hear your voice between the static and the rain—
“Come home, come home, it’s all the same.”
Chorus (English, then Japanese)
Ashes in the rain, we carry our names
Like faded paper lanterns drifting through flame—
When the night is burning, will you remember me?
光の灰の中で名前を運ぶ
紙の灯籠、炎を漂う
夜が燃えても、私を覚えてるか？
No gods here—just rust, regret, and warning tape,
A garden of masks growing wild from the cracks,
Once we believed the world would never turn its back—
But dawn is a rumor, and the future’s painted black.
Strange lights flicker, distant over water,
Not heaven, not rescue, just static on the sea—
We count the stars, not for wonder, but for witness,
Broken country kneeling, haunted, refusing to be free.
We are shadows walking through history’s marrow,
Our bones tuned to Geiger, our lullabies gone,
Still we plant sunflowers, and pray for tomorrow—
As the mystery lights fade, but the story lives on.
If you hear the wind, know it’s full of voices,
If you see the lights, remember who we were—
Ashes in the rain, but our hearts burn slow—
Fukushima whispers, and the whole world knows.
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