Born with the specter of mushroom clouds,
As the world raced toward Armageddon.
We were children of the Atomic dawn,
When siren wails filled all with alarm.
The playground echoed a hidden dread,
Innocence and evil grimly interbred.
We played hopscotch on the brink of fate,
Counting squares like numbered days.
The blowing winds tasted of the uncertain,
As if each breath held an ominous toxin.
Laughter was suppressed by distant tests,
Man-made sunrises in desert Southwest.
Bedtime tales struggled to allay fears—
Duck-and-cover drills and radiation suits.
As somber refrains foretold destruction,
Sunday prayers begged divine intervention.
I grew up in this Twilight Zone of paradox,
Picnics on lakes, building of bomb shelters,
An upbringing straddling hope and horror,
Synchronized to ticks of a Geiger counter.
Yet I managed to cope with this outlook,
Trading baseball cards and comic books,
Imagination soaring on cosmic plumes,
Dreaming of a world beyond the gloom.
But now though with Cold War unfrozen,
A restiveness still lingers—a silent fallout.
Thus, at times when I regard the horizon,
I half-expect a bright flash to burst out.
© 1991, Kenneth Koziol. All rights reserved.