Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Mama (papa) 2011


Mama I hear you
I hear you screaming out
Helen Caldicott
I hear you laughing out
loud over
that
bottle of wine
that story  
about Linus Pauling
Barry Commoner
that story
of baby teeth
strontium 90
You stood there taking
the rocks as they 
called you dirty reds 
while you tried to save
the world
pushing a baby stroller
warning
warning
about
milk
 babies
 bomb shelters
 "the fallacy of safety!"
there is 
there is
there is
no (safe) place to hide
that, my friends, was the good old 1950s

tonight, oh mom,
what are you saying
from the sky?
are you shaking your head
in dismay as 
radiation 
spews
spews
back in Japan where we blew them to hell?

       dear god, they are saying: move  
the children
  away from
the melting plants!
   but       where
oh where
can they move
them to? 

$54 billion in loans for more
of these fission monsters
and billions more for modernizing
bombs
digging up more uranium
from our mother earth
building more monsters
spewing more poisons
cancering and monstering
us all

there are a few of us talking
shaking our heads-
(mostly women)
why always women?
talking only to ourselves?
        most are sleeping
and having a nuclear love affair---

tonight I took a walk and looked at the sky

tonight I looked in the monk's eyes
       there were pools of love
words of compassion 
for the Japanese
there were pools 
    of love
at the monastery
on the hill

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