Poetry

A Book Report*
by Kaaren Strauch Brown

August 26, 1986
A mushroom floats to heaven,
scattering its spores as hell erupts down below.
A minor accident, nothing to worry about,
no one to blame,
perhaps a careless technician.
Scientists talk, liquidators die,
a city’s children shuffle through deadly dust.
Don’t tell, it’s all right.
 
2018
New Safe Confinement.
Time to bury Reactor Number Four.
Ukraine, 5% of territory contaminated.
Belarus, 23% of territory contaminated.
Half-life—Cesium-137, thirty years.
Time’s up.
Half-life—Plutonium-239, 24,000 years.
Where does human history end?
 
Chernobyl Tour—Чернобыль-ТУР
See the diversity and richness
of the Chernobyl zone,
derelict hospitals and kindergartens.
Only three-hundred dollars.
Includes Pripyat, the Pompeii of the North.
Be the first of your friends
to visit the future.
Health insurance required.
*Plokhy, Serhii (2018). Chernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe.  New York: Basic Books.
About Kaaren Strauch Brown
click to read BIO
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​Kaaren Strauch Brown is a lifelong student, retired Professor of Social Work, post retirement museum docent.  She is a recent transplant to San Francisco from the Midwest. After annoying her fellow sixth graders with her fiction many, many years ago, she has returned to writing. Her science fiction book, The Abril Legacy, is available at Amazon E-Books.
Other works by Kaaren in this issue:
​A Profile of Diane Frank (Nonfiction-OLLI)
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​The Vistas & Byways Review is the semiannual journal of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and visual arts by members of OLLI at SF State.
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​The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at San Francisco State University​ provides material support to the Vistas & Byways volunteer staff.