Shōwa Day

Across sixty-three years the Shōwa era folded together a long winter and a long thaw — paper lanterns through a city rebuilt twice, the first commuter train at five in the morning, the slow professional patience of the people who lived between the wars.

Today is not a memorial. It is the morning *after* — an honest, sunlit room where the past has been folded and put away, and a kettle is on.

We light no candle. We open a window. The morning is already here, gentle as honey, and it is enough.