" I Read the News Today, Oh Boy ..."

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Today I was dismayed to read
In a French news magazine
The story of a precarious cooling pool
Perched perilously high above the ground
And its precious store of tons and tons of spent nuclear fuel
In the badly damaged building of reactor number four
In a place called Fukushima
And of the radioactive nightmare it could unleash
Should the water in it happen to leak out
In the event of another minor earthquake
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And in the same story learned
That ever growing numbers of outraged Japanese
Are protesting every week now against nuclear energy
They are calling it the Hydrangea (or Hortensia) Revolution
For they have adopted as a symbol the hydrangea flowers
Which bloom in abundance in the summer in Japan
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Hydrangeas also abound in Brittany
Where I photographed a few at close range not long ago
Before I learned about the revolution in progress in Japan
So I offer these images for whatever they are worth
To the revolution, to the people of Japan, to the people of Planet Earth
While hoping it is not too late to avert the catastrophe
Which hangs suspended, fragile yet dreadful to contemplate
Over our heads.
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This evening at the dinner table
I tried to explain to my fifteen year old daughter
What the potential scale of the consequences could be
Were the water to leak and the stored fuel catch fire
But was unable to find adequate words
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The human race perhaps really is
Too smart for its own good
The sorcerer's apprentices may soon have their day
How can such stupidity exist
In a world where delicate hydrangea petals still bloom ?
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