On July 16 in 1945, the first atomic bomb was detonated near Alamogordo, and a few weeks later was dropped on Japan on August 6 The bomb that blasted Hiroshima and Nagasaki And scarred the whole world Exploded unbeknown to me

No adult thought to tell a child That we could all now Be destroyed In the twinkling of an eye No-one mentioned That man had become The shatterer of worlds.

The savants of the western world Toiled in the dusty desert To create fission They even feared Would conflagrate our world.

Playing at being gods Not in white coats and sterile labs But in dust and heat Stripped to the waist In a home-made tent Rigged up at the foot of a puerile tower Invented to try to reduce Unknown quantities of fall-out In the first attempt To detonate an atom bomb.

The core was carried in a valise In the back seat of a car And driven over a bumpy road To where eight scientists Waited at base camp To assemble the plutonium pieces In silence with their own lives in the balance Eight men worked in deepest concentration.

The murderous device now ready It was carried on a stretcher To the car And continued its journey To the tent in the desert Beneath the searing sun Where the final team of scientists Waited in the dim cool shelter.

The core was hoisted manually Before being lowered into the waiting bomb The only sound The ticking Geiger counters Occasionally an instruction And then the monster Was winched by hand To the top of the shoddy tower And a pile of mattresses Twenty feet high Placed beneath In case it fell!

A hundred feet above the desert In a strong wind The brutish metal sphere Covered with leads Connecting sixty-four detonators Swung in the rain and thunder Waiting for zero hour.

And when it came In the blackness of night The darkness turned to light A blazing sun glared on the horizon Lighting up the desert And a slow roar of sound Rolled across the land.

As the fireball Raced into the sky They watched from a bunker And some wept Some laughed Some were silent One had goose pimples As the world changed forever.

In this cumbersome And homely way Using mattresses and suitcases The sweat of their brows A temporary tent and teamwork The greatest terror The world had known Came into being.

And this gives me heart.

Mere men, in their own Unskilled and make-shift way Can re-create with gentleness and patience The new world That we all ache for. Our puny efforts are worthwhile For God wastes nothing.

More Food for Thought If it is to be, it is up to me. Advice for life for his boys, from an anonymous English schoolmaster