Atomic Guilt

Yesterday I wrote about sin, but the horrendous anniversary marked by August 6 boggles my soul. I'm sorry. Please forgive us

1945, over Hiroshima, Japan. 150,000 dead after a minute or two
"Mother or Murderer, you have
given or taken life—
Now all is one!"
Dame Edith Sitwell, "Poems for the Atomic Age"

And we, as readers and writers, look to the works of our creator for, once again, natural forgiveness. At least that what it sounds like John Hersey is doing in his description of the wildflowers blooming in the aftermath of The Bomb:

"Over everything—up through the wreckage of the city, in gutters, along the riverbanks, tangled among tiles and tin roofing, climbing on charred tree trunks—was a blanket of fresh, vivid, lush, optimistic green; the verdancy rose even from the foundations of ruined houses. Weeds already hid the ashes, and wild flowers were in bloom among the city's bones. The bomb had not only left the underground organs of plants intact; it had stimulated them. Everywhere were bluets and Spanish bayonets, goosefoot, morning glories and day lilies, the hairy-footed bean, purslane and clothbur and sesame and panicgrass and feverfew. Especially in a circle at the center, sickle senna grew in extraordinary regeneration, not only standing among the charred remnants of the same plant but pushing up in new places, among bricks and through cracks in the asphalt. It actually seemed as if a load of sickle senna seed had been dropped along with the bomb."

The thing is, we're still doing it. No forgivness for us yet.