Drums of War

Adam Ellsworth, UW Bothell

Earth trembling drums

Keep the time of our war songs

Not heard, seen, or felt

Hanford, my home

Sofia Torres, UW Seattle

Afternoon heat and breeze over Hanford

Blows dust over the American steppe.

Craters in the caverns of Selkirk Mountains

Dominated by dreary mines. We

Expected an era of Fear to fall on America the

Great when she learned to

Harness the power of the Sun.

In time, we said, war would cease

Just like the Sun we hold once revolved around Earth.

Knowing of the truth never

Led us down a poor path for

Most of us never felt the fever of

Nagasaki. Now they say that

Only those who lack will and

Pride would ponder or

Question the lands we

Ravaged and the people we

Slaughtered within seconds.

Then what can we feel about our own home?

Uranium usurped the rivers and

Valleys that are now vilified by those who once valued them.

Which now there is no wishful thinking, for

Xenon poisoned more than the reactor.

Yesterday, we could have yelled out if it weren’t for the

Zealots that basked in the heat and breeze.

The Reality

Justina Abrahamson, Dayton High School

From the Cold War to the cold days in our nation

We’re still discovering radioactive sludge here

With the people in our country saying this is an abomination

With the people in our nation collecting horrible disease near

From the underground tanks to straight into the ground

Near the Yakama Nation from the Columbia River

Poisonous waste in the river ingested by the creature

From the people of this land we have a moral obligation

To fix this: Growing up on the Spokane Reservation

My sisters tribes have suffered way too long with this wound

The Mother Earth is dying and we are the killers

If we don’t change our actions there will be

detriment to generations of all mankind

So please hear our cries and stop to realize

That all the people want is to be prioritize

So please hear our cries and stop to realize

That all the people want is to be apologize

So please stop and hear our cries to realize

That all the people want is to be recognize

Cope

Solomon Brenner, Dayton High School

The drive for power

Destruction with an everlasting effect

Sick storage slandering the ground beneath

How may we mend the defiant defect

The poisoned Columbia certain to seethe

Wilderness untamed

Companies unblamed

Under the blast

Past

Aimed to have remained an unclaimed name, yet a shamed, maimed name for all of history

The desolation The insubordination

The unwillingness to scour

Legacy of Atoms

Logan Berg, Dayton High School

A legacy of atoms in silent gloom

Where history’s whispers run dark and deep

From reactor’s heart, a sinister boom

Beneath the soil, secrets seep

Forging futures in nuclear light

A haunting echo of a broken dream

A legacy cast in radioactive plight

Ignoring the rivers silent scream

Hanford’s secrets buried deep below

In order to erase the memory of the desolate place

For in this poisoned soil chemicals flow

Leaving a mess for the future to face

We began to cleanse the scars of our atomic past

But with progress came a hidden blight

We sit on our hands as the leakage moves fast

Continuing to fester without a fight

Laura Da’ is a poet and teacher who studied at the Institute of American Indian Arts. She is the author of Tributaries, American Book Award winner, and Instruments of the True Measure, Washington State Book Award winner. Da’ is the recipient of fellowships from the Academy of American Poets and The Native Arts and Culture Foundation. She is the current Poet Laureate for the City of Redmond and Poet Planner for King County, Washington. Da’ is Eastern Shawnee and she lives near Renton, Washington with her family.

Get inspired to write by checking out Laura Da’’s published books and poems posted on poetryfoundation.org, poets.org, and her website.

If you’re looking for additional inspiration, Laura writes, “I love poems that engage with place and meld observation with inquiry. Some of my favorite poets are Natalie Diaz, Arthur Sze, Sherwin Bitsui, and Cedar Sigo.”