Dick Raymond's August Poem - “SHATTERER OF WORLDS”

 

                                                                                

"SHATTERER OF WORLDS" 

6 August 1945, over Hiroshima

 

            Now Colonel Paul Tibbets, of Quincy, is handed the horrible  mission,

            The aircraft--named for his own mother, a lady called Enola Gay—

            Fat egg in its belly, yolk loaded, all set for the moment of fission,

            Takes off from small Tinian, climbing through clouds of a beautiful day.

 

            Straight on, all alone in the ether, the Superfort, silver in sunlight,

            Soars over its target, so peaceful, no thought of the oncoming hour—

            "Bomb away" quoth the aimer, the aircraft wheels rapidly round for the home-flight,            

             As beneath them, a slumbering city is treated to terrible power.

 

            An ominous blossom arises, a purple, cylindrical column

            Quick-following sun-bright expansion, leaves stricken survivors  aghast,

            A sinister shadow outspreading, a mushroom all silent and  solemn,

            And wars, from this moment, are altered, whole cities erased in the blast.

 

            But far from the blue Marianas, a scientist, sunk in depression,

            Smokes hundreds of cigarettes, striving to expunge that bright vision of doom—

            As lank Oppenheimer soft-murmurs a prayer to preclude its  progression,

            The Baghavad-Gita, in Sanskrit, "Behold, I have Death in my  womb!"

 

            5-30-20

 

* This line from the Baghavad-Gita was supposedly spoken by chief scientist Robert Oppenheimer, on observing the "Trinity" test of the first atomic bomb, at Los Alamos, N.M, 16 July 1945. He suffered from years of guilt over the event.