1. The Dead Zone
North from Kiev,
empty roads…
The
light of other summers opens
among
the pages. In the photograph, your face,
fragile
as pink shells washed along the beach;
the
light moves, your face more
the
face of my memory,
not
the face I knew, your image clouding over,
a
shadow across these chapters.
At Chernobyl, in the first days after
the explosions, places around the reactor emitted 30,000 roentgens per hour. To
kill a human, a dose of 500 roentgens within a few hours is sufficient.
The
cyclotrons divide
atom
and soul, everywhere a sense
of
madness and decay.
We
shall wait a hundred years
to
weigh the losses, behind the fence
Apocalypse
beside
us
comfy
on the garden seat.
April 26, 1986
12:28 a.m.
The Chernobyl staff received permission to resume the reactor power
reduction. One of the operators made a mistake. Instead of keeping power at thirty
percent he forgot to reset a controller causing the power to plummet to one
percent because of water now filling the core, and xenon (a neutron absorber)
which was building up in the reactor. This amount of power was too low for the
test. The water added to the reactor is heated by the nuclear reaction and
turned into steam to turn the turbines of the generator.
1:00-1:20 a.m.
The operator forced the reactor up to seven percent power by removing
all but six of the control rods. This was a violation of procedure and the
reactor was never built to operate at such low power. The RBMK reactor is
unstable when its core is filled with water. The operator tried manually to
take over the flow of the water returning from the turbine, which is very
difficult as small temperature changes can cause large power fluctuations. The
operator was not successful in getting the flow of water corrected and the
reactor was getting increasingly unstable. The operator disabled emergency
shutdown procedures, because a shutdown would abort the test, which would have
to be repeated.
1:22 a.m.
By now, when the operators thought they had the most stable conditions,
they decided to start the test.
I see through my hands, their taut nerves.
I have become more ancient than silence.
1:23 a.m.
The test begins. The remaining turbine was shut down.
1:40 a.m.
Power in the reactor began to gradually rise because of the reduction in
water flow caused by the turbine shutdown which leads to an increase in
boiling. The operator initiated manual shutdown, which led to a quick power
increase due to the control rod design.
Spade
at the ready, Death at my shoulder
sneers,
For you.
When
whispers condemn, where
is
salvation?
On the streets,
a
crisscross of people, cars,
the
celebration continues, the traffic light’s
ritual
change, its sly wink
towards
those disappearing deeper
underground.
The
jabber
of
politicians, their jabber
of
the public good a seepage
we
sink through.
Sinking
through.
A
gamma burst whitens flowers,
a
mystery brightness surrounding
bitter
colours
in
quiet lanes.
The
gag of fruit
ripens
too early, plump poisons.
One
taste
to
send us to the wards.
1:23:44 a.m.
Disaster Point − the reactor reached one-hundred-and-twenty times its
full power. All the radioactive fuel disintegrated, and pressure from all of
the excess steam which was supposed to go to the turbines broke every one of
the pressure tubes and blew off the entire top shield of the reactor.
We
came to the ocean, saying
Heal us,
but
the seas were waste, vast
with
our disbelief,
with
our sinking through.
We
believed the master plan, relentless,
all
we were, the debt
at
first we failed to notice
we
became.
The
day passes, and the world, too,
pale
leaf sickly with this dew,
passes.
We
look for blame, for reasons.
Crows
boil up from the dead land.
Where
are our senses, that we
may
recognise our peace, the love
that
has passed from us.
I
have dreamed a dream,
and
the dream returns, as if this sadness
could
be named.
I
watch the crows, above the city
their
smoky flights, circling,
anxious.
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