The Year of My Birth - Sept 16 2025

 

The Year of My Birth

Sept 16 2025

In 1955, the year of my birth

they were testing bombs

In the desert of Nevada

as US soldiers watched,

eager volunteers

reassured

they had nothing to fear.

Patriotic witnesses

who were being tested as well

witting or not.

Just imagine, they played Russian roulette

with nuclear bombs

close enough to Vegas

crowds gathered to gawk like the 4th of July.

At the dawn of the atomic age

night turned to day,

and geiger counters trilled

like never before.

Yet they’d seen Hiroshima.

The city levelled.

The badly burned bodies

and horrible deaths,

the desperate thirst

of those who managed to live.

And even the skin, where clothes had vaporized;

a kimono

tattooed to her back

in permanent ink.

But never mind,

this was war.

First the light

then the sound,

and soon, ungodly winds 

hurtling outward,

flattening Potemkin towns

like houses of cards.

But the explosions were beautiful 

the power intoxicating.

I see their awe-struck faces

lit by manmade suns

looking raptly up;

such excitement

to be shock troops

at the new frontier of science.

But, as I said, I wasn’t born yet

if about to be.

Back when there was white bread

light as air,

all starch,

and soft enough 

no human baker touched it.

When lead

leached into water

came with the paint,

was in the blue/black exhaust

of each gas-guzzling car.

When DDT was sprayed 

just in case,

and the plastic age was getting its start;

and no one cared

when steaming effluent

turned stagnant lakes a lurid red. 

And now, fallout

dusting the land

wherever wind blows,

vaulting oceans 

on the jet stream

until the whole planet would have glowed

if only we had gamma ray vision.

In the womb

it must have been mother’s milk

and the placenta couldn’t protect.

Who knows what mark it left;

an infant, raised on isotopes

in a radioactive world. 

They knew better,

they must have.

But then, this was war,

and we were the good guys

fighting the good fight

for our way of life.

Catching up on my reading. 

The Aug 2025 edition of the Atlantic had a cover story and several articles about nuclear war: looking back at the history of the nuclear age; looking ahead at the risks. One piece included photos of the underground testing of atom bombs in the Nevada desert in 1955. 

My year of birth. I’ve always wondered about that weird birthmark. All the other flaws and oddities. And about what might have been, because there’s no “control” Brian who was raised in a pre-atomic world. A higher I.Q.? More athletic? No bad hip? Less temperamental? 

Or did it improve me?!! There is something called “hormesis”. It posits that stressing the repair system of DNA strengthens it. Some people intentionally spend time in old mines, hoping that the radium down there will rejuvenate their cells. 

But back to Nevada. The soldiers were naive. People in Vegas had viewing parties. There was an arms race, and every patriotic American wanted to win. 

The poem contains echoes of some of the catchphrases of the era:  JFK’s “New Frontier”; preserving “our way of life” from scheming Communists; and “the dawn of the atomic age”.

(I had technical problems with the photos in the Atlantic that triggered this poem. So these are thanks to Google images. Not quite as good, but same idea.)

~~~~~~~~~~~

(lit by man-made suns: poetic, but not good physics. Technically, atom bombs use fission (splitting atoms), while the power of the sun (and all stars) comes from fusion (pushing protons together, producing heavier atoms — hydrogen to helium — and in the process releasing energy).)