The baby blinks her eyes as the sun falls from the sky  She feels the stings of a thousand fires as the city around her dies  Some sleep beneath the rubble, some wake to a different world  From the crying babe will grow a laughing girl.  Ten summers fade to autumn, ten winters' snows have passed  She's a child of dreams and dances, she's a racer strong and fast  But the headaches come ever more often and the dizziness always returns  And the word that she hears is leukemia, and it burns.  CHORUS:  Cranes over Hiroshima, white and red and gold  Flicker in the sunlight like a million vanished souls  I will fold these cranes of paper to a thousand one by one  And I'll fly away when I am done.  Her ancestors knew the legend--if you make a thousand cranes  From squares of colored paper, it will take the pain away  With loving hands she folds them, six hundred forty-four  Till the morning her trembling fingers can't fold anymore.  CHORUS  Her friends did not forget her--crane after crane they made  Until they reached a thousand and laid them upon her grave  People from everywhere gathered, together a prayer they said  And they wrote the words in granite so none can forget:  FINAL CHORUS:  This is our cry, this is our prayer, peace in the world.