Good Kindling ~ Poems by Virginia Lee Sprague

Albert

Einstein is with me, haunting me,

I rent a documentary about him,

watch an odd movie about a chance meeting,

with Marilyn Monroe and Joe Dimaggio,

in which he has nightmares about Hiroshima,

I weep for his conscience, now violated, by the puppet masters.

The following day I receive junk mail,

with Albert's sweet, sad eyes staring at me from the cover,

I here his voice on NPR, sad,

desperate to communicate his fear of nuclear war,

today I open a book, in the back he is quoted,

saying the use of force will never bring peace.

Tomorrow, is the 50th anniversary of Hiroshima, 8:15 am.

a woman was fixing her hair in a mirror when the flash went off,

she was blown out of her house, but survived,

her hair was not in its proper place that day.

While American children were eating their Wheaties,

two bombs, "Fat Man" and "Little Boy", dropped,

created by playful geniuses,

who by dissecting the Universe and juggling atoms,

ended the war and Innocence.

August 4, 1995