An Epic Poem
One Day in Utah- adapted from a book by John G. Fuller
The ewes were a month from lambing-
the sheds would soon be full up, hundreds of ewes
dropping new lambs and tending them.
Out on the plains,
pregnant ewes chew grass,
inching their way
nibbling sparse vegetation
taking mouthfuls of dust and dirt
with every bite.
Above them,
a powdery white line
is drawn across a crystal blue sky-
puffing out
the way a cat tail does
when riled.
A silky white ribbon unraveling,
floating out behind the droning dot.
Oblivious, the ewes chew on.
Only a few bay when the ground shakes and the sky cracks open and the dust from thirty miles away
covers their wool,
clogs their snouts,
chokes their throats.
The sun is a dim dot
disappearing behind the rising cloud.
INTRO: In the early 1950’s, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission set out to equal the Russians who had earlier detonated a hydrogen bomb. On it’s way to the test site, the U.S. military accidentally discharged its payload over a populated area of the western United States. The Day We Bombed Utah adapted from John G. Fuller’s book by Simon Hastings.
Hidden from sight,
the government bomber circled above,
pilots and soldiers pressing faces against windows
stained with old cigarette smoke,
sweat dripping rivlets down brows,
along noses,
washing away old dirt
on the small, square fragile pane,
leaving a tiny dirty circle.
"Jesus,' someone in the plane says
and maybe they all say it-
but it's the same word echoed
over the roar of the engines.
"Jesus!"
And then, "Oh my God..."
No one hears the whimpering
above the hum inside the fuselage.
The pilot feels his guilt in his knuckles,
fights off the urge to plunge
into the side of the canyons.
The cloud below spills across the land,
black ink poured into clear water,
staining it in swirling streaks and ribbons.
A lamb looks into the wind
then topples tumbleweed style
across the plains.
As the sand and smoke and silt settles,
as the sun burns down in dusty streaks,
the ewes and the lambs stagger on wobbly legs,
shake their backs.
Out on the plains,
pregnant ewes chew grass,
inching their way
nibbling sparse vegetation
taking mouthfuls of dust and dirt
with every bite.
The days blow past
Days into weeks into months into dust
Going about his routine,
Ken Bulloch, sheep farmer,
stocky and built like his name sounds,
fed his ewes who were close to bursting.
He kept his eye out for premature births,
walking along the long smelly row of pens.
An adult sheep,
standing stock still,
its muzzle dropped down into its feed,
does not move when Ken approaches it.
It stands motionless as Ken nudges
the animal with the toe of his boot.
He tries lifting it by the wool
but large clumps pull away,
revealing large, scabby sores running along its back, around its mouth and eyes.
Standing at the trough,
like a Roger Corman zombie,
the sheep is dead.
Out in the fields,
playful sheep freeze up,
drop over dead.
At shearing time,
wool slides off their backs
with a single cut from the razor.
It is not uncommon to find 40 or 50 sheep dead each morning.
Eventually the birthing begins.
Newborns emerge deformed, stunted-
flesh as pale and soft as a human’s.
They try to stand only to topple over dead.
Some capitulate, laying down and dying without a struggle.
One was born as only a body,
no head, no limbs.
It is the end of the world.
A mother and her daughter
spend an afternoon
picking up the carcasses
scattered around the farm.
Dirty, smelling of blood and death,
she remembers her child's Homecoming dance is that night.
She looks at her own trembling fingers,
recognizes the futility of hemming the cottony white hem of a gown.
The mother turns to her daughter and says, 'You wear your sister's dress from last year tonight.'
And the daughter, without griping,
thins her lips, brushes her blonde corn silk hair with the back of grimy hand,
and goes in, quietly snorting a fine powder out her nose.
A year later, while she lies dying in the hospital, the daughter will recall that night and wish she had been able to wear her own gown for that special night.
Soon the people of St. George begin to talk.
They remember the day shocks
rumbled along the canyons, shaking windows when the impact reached their homes.
Outside, a giant reddish-black hand reached up over the
mountains, obliterated the sun, and fell like ash to cover the land.
Cosmic dust-
The tears of Armaggedon
falling to mix death with fear.
Phones rang. Voices trembled.
‘Don’t go out. Keep the children in. The cloud is coming our way.’
Just before Christmas that year,
Arthur Bruhn says he had a headache.
His face is yellow and drawn.
His wife drives him forty miles for blood tests. At forty eight, he has
Acute Lymphatic Leukemia.
On his death bed, he turns to his wife and says, “ Someday they will prove radioactivity did this.”
But it has been fifty years since.
Government red tape, higher and lower court rulings, and a system that just won’t admit it failed keep this story buried.
Time erodes many things-
including memories.
The ewes were a month from lambing-
the sheds would soon be full up, hundreds of ewes
dropping new lambs and tending them.
Out on the plains,
pregnant ewes chew grass,
inching their way
nibbling sparse vegetation
taking mouthfuls of dust and dirt
with every bite.
Above them,
a powdery white line
is drawn across a crystal blue sky-
puffing out
the way a cat tail does
when riled.
A silky white ribbon unraveling,
floating out behind the droning dot.
Oblivious, the ewes chew on.
Only a few bay when the ground shakes and the sky cracks open and the dust from thirty miles away
covers their wool,
clogs their snouts,
chokes their throats.
The sun is a dim dot
disappearing behind the rising cloud.
INTRO: In the early 1950’s, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission set out to equal the Russians who had earlier detonated a hydrogen bomb. On it’s way to the test site, the U.S. military accidentally discharged its payload over a populated area of the western United States. The Day We Bombed Utah adapted from John G. Fuller’s book by Simon Hastings.
Hidden from sight,
the government bomber circled above,
pilots and soldiers pressing faces against windows
stained with old cigarette smoke,
sweat dripping rivlets down brows,
along noses,
washing away old dirt
on the small, square fragile pane,
leaving a tiny dirty circle.
"Jesus,' someone in the plane says
and maybe they all say it-
but it's the same word echoed
over the roar of the engines.
"Jesus!"
And then, "Oh my God..."
No one hears the whimpering
above the hum inside the fuselage.
The pilot feels his guilt in his knuckles,
fights off the urge to plunge
into the side of the canyons.
The cloud below spills across the land,
black ink poured into clear water,
staining it in swirling streaks and ribbons.
A lamb looks into the wind
then topples tumbleweed style
across the plains.
As the sand and smoke and silt settles,
as the sun burns down in dusty streaks,
the ewes and the lambs stagger on wobbly legs,
shake their backs.
Out on the plains,
pregnant ewes chew grass,
inching their way
nibbling sparse vegetation
taking mouthfuls of dust and dirt
with every bite.
The days blow past
Days into weeks into months into dust
Going about his routine,
Ken Bulloch, sheep farmer,
stocky and built like his name sounds,
fed his ewes who were close to bursting.
He kept his eye out for premature births,
walking along the long smelly row of pens.
An adult sheep,
standing stock still,
its muzzle dropped down into its feed,
does not move when Ken approaches it.
It stands motionless as Ken nudges
the animal with the toe of his boot.
He tries lifting it by the wool
but large clumps pull away,
revealing large, scabby sores running along its back, around its mouth and eyes.
Standing at the trough,
like a Roger Corman zombie,
the sheep is dead.
Out in the fields,
playful sheep freeze up,
drop over dead.
At shearing time,
wool slides off their backs
with a single cut from the razor.
It is not uncommon to find 40 or 50 sheep dead each morning.
Eventually the birthing begins.
Newborns emerge deformed, stunted-
flesh as pale and soft as a human’s.
They try to stand only to topple over dead.
Some capitulate, laying down and dying without a struggle.
One was born as only a body,
no head, no limbs.
It is the end of the world.
A mother and her daughter
spend an afternoon
picking up the carcasses
scattered around the farm.
Dirty, smelling of blood and death,
she remembers her child's Homecoming dance is that night.
She looks at her own trembling fingers,
recognizes the futility of hemming the cottony white hem of a gown.
The mother turns to her daughter and says, 'You wear your sister's dress from last year tonight.'
And the daughter, without griping,
thins her lips, brushes her blonde corn silk hair with the back of grimy hand,
and goes in, quietly snorting a fine powder out her nose.
A year later, while she lies dying in the hospital, the daughter will recall that night and wish she had been able to wear her own gown for that special night.
Soon the people of St. George begin to talk.
They remember the day shocks
rumbled along the canyons, shaking windows when the impact reached their homes.
Outside, a giant reddish-black hand reached up over the
mountains, obliterated the sun, and fell like ash to cover the land.
Cosmic dust-
The tears of Armaggedon
falling to mix death with fear.
Phones rang. Voices trembled.
‘Don’t go out. Keep the children in. The cloud is coming our way.’
Just before Christmas that year,
Arthur Bruhn says he had a headache.
His face is yellow and drawn.
His wife drives him forty miles for blood tests. At forty eight, he has
Acute Lymphatic Leukemia.
On his death bed, he turns to his wife and says, “ Someday they will prove radioactivity did this.”
But it has been fifty years since.
Government red tape, higher and lower court rulings, and a system that just won’t admit it failed keep this story buried.
Time erodes many things-
including memories.