Tournesol Plus Caesium

The impossible disaster
That twisted up the widest roads,
Those roads that regenerated
Beyond belief,
Cracked the containment.

And from concrete spheres comes
A lingering death. All death
Seems to linger, this intimacy
Over all the earth
You are closer now, to us. And further. Always
You go in one direction
But the world
Means you're never headed anywhere.

And Fukushima plants its sunflowers,
Those pied seeds
That, honeyed, we would eat,
But that was then, and this is now,
The fault made, the line transgressed,
The tournesol that rises,
To shine like the sun that bears its name,
Filled with every form of radiation.

Emergent like a nation,
From dust, from particulates, from radionuclides,
These sunflowers are doomed to the flame –
A briefly rising sun –
And then to complete their sacrifice,
Immolated in seclusion,
A moment of life-saving beauty,
Then the pyre.

The reality of state slickness,
Collusion, like liquid metal, between
Power company, company power, the people, their knowledge, their leadership,
All running into one dangerous gloss,
Revealed and contrasted:
Oh sacrificial flower,
The tournesol plus caesium,
The sunflower plus strontium,
Burn the petals, burn the seeds, burn the stalks, burn the roots.

Yet falls the rain, and the rain is not safe,
Yet moves the wind, and the wind is not safe,
Yet stands the earth, and the earth is not safe,
And in the fire go the tournesols, who have done their part,
We think these materials somewhere beyond natural,
That we have forged in our anti-stars, our anti-suns,
And put to death these sunflowers.