Seeker Magazine

SkyEarth Letters

by Cherie Staples

The Hideous Legacy

struggling to bring forth this month's essay
there's such a dearth of good news —
Israel and Palestine continue go at each other
now on the back burner of the media because
India and Pakistan are on the edge of outright war
and have nuclear weapons

land —people —hate

I —P
coincidence that these two conflicts concern nations with the same initials?

"this land is mine" —the theme from the movie "Exodus"
"god gave this land to me"

that idea has got to be the height of human egotism
that a piece of paper or a armored tank gives full ownership
of a piece of land to a human being

good lord! there are millions and billions of creatures
existing in every square inch of good earth that have no idea
of human ownership
the land ultimately belongs to the earth

and when petty quarrels —and they are all so petty when you get right down to the
heart of it —have been ground into dust
some future passer-by will look upon the land
— as did Shelley look up on Ozymandius —
and see a visage half-buried in barren sand
with no city nor people left to rule

so will it be
should any country choose to lead out a nuclear weapon
and turn a swathe of land to barrenness and rotten sickness
and spread nuclear pollution around the globe in fine particulates
no matter where the explosions

these leaders and their military henchmen
should be sent to Chernobyl to attempt to clean up
the unclean-upable
to feed and care for the thousands of radiation-sickened and
dying people who remain there because they have no
other place to go and their government is unable to help them
eating food grown in irradiated ground
drinking water from radiation-contaminated sources
living in the result of an accidental
meltdown of a nuclear reactor
and all of us in the Northern Hemisphere were touched
by the cloud of released radiation from Chernobyl
as it circled the globe slowly falling down to earth
from the upper atmosphere

as those of us in the 1940s, '50s, '60s, '70s have been touched
by the clouds of radiation from above-ground nuclear weapons
testing in the western United States
the southwest Pacific islands
(Bikini atoll — the islanders forcibly relocated
and their islands extremely contaminated)
in Russia/U.S.S.R.
in China, India, Pakistan
the "nuclear club"

these leaders should be forced to personally care for
people dying from beryllium and other sicknesses
initiated twenty years, forty years ago
when they made plutonium triggers at Rocky Flats
when they mined and milled uranium in western Colorado

these leaders must include President Bush and his
advisors Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld
and other militant advisors
the people who just announced that the United States
plan to manufacture plutonium triggers ("pits") for nuclear bombs — again
spending several billion for a new plant
even as the United States is spending billions of dollars
to clean up Rocky Flats – the plant which used to make plutonium triggers
the recent brief news article states
the government would be searching existing weapons facilities
for a place to build another "factory"
we must be prepared and recycled "pits" just can't cut it — or explode it

the erstwhile President Bush has signed a piece of paper
with Russia's Mr. Putin
a supposed treaty on nuclear weapons — an outright farce
an insult to the people of both countries and to the planet
there will be no arms reduction —no absolute destruction of weapons
none whatsoever under this treaty
and it allows further arms research and mobilization and
the beloved of militant Republicans —anti-missile missiles
circling our planet —the militarization of the space beyond our atmosphere
truly an unconscionable act towards this planet's beings

together with this President's decision to abrogate —
although I hardly think that he thought of it all by himself —
the anti-ballistic missile treaty with Russia (as part of the former USSR)
which actually saw both countries destroying nuclear missiles and their silos —
this President is putting the United States firmly on the path toward
actually using nuclear weaponry under the guise of fighting terrorism
in an endless war

already U.S. military has been spreading depleted uranium
in the Balkans and in Afghanistan
by firing uranium-tipped bullets and shells
another little gift left behind by our military geniuses
left behind to create new and different sicknesses
in the children who play on ground contaminated by the dust from
the depleted uranium armaments
in the people who eat the contaminated foods and drink the
contaminated water

the awful thing is —we will suffer at least two and a half more years
of this kind of leadership, which has accomplished the tearing apart
of international treaties, the rejection of most of the rest of the world's humanity,
the outright diminishment of the United States' own environmental
quality and public land protections, and civil rights
all in only eighteen months

I fear for the world's humanity
and I fear for the earth itself and all its endemic beings
even though the earth would be far better off without the
humanity that scourges it

Incredible clouds at sunset in Northglenn, Colorado

Photographs and Writing Copyright 2002 by Cherie Staples. No reproduction without written permission.

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Letter to the Author:
Cherie Staples at skyearth1@aol.com