Anne Elezabeth Pluto
(Russia-USA)
Chernobyl
Once more the day of remembrance draws near.
I see, I hear, I feel you:
Anna Akhmatova
From Requiem
Prologue
For Sergei Brushko
Give me your glasses
then your eyes – a second sight
necessary to envision what I have
not lived – and that by mere chance
my mother confessed – god spoke to her
Go to America – where you were born.
My father – the war was his adventure
and me –the first generation of this family
escaped Chernobyl – but I must be the west
witness – lest we forget the complications
of modern life – of empire and heat of energy
and human frailty. Sergei – even from the grave
your photos haunt and chronicle – the quick and
the dead – wake them all with your eyes
bring us not to commemoration, or to remembrance
but to action and diligence
bring us home.
One
Mikhail Gorbachev
I confess that we were afraid of panic,
The cold war seems incongruous
vestige of the past – demonstrated disaster
unique – no country can be prepared for every
eventuality – we must deploy the maximum effort
to prevent disasters. Social ecological economic
consequences too heavy in every sense of the word
In the beginning there was the word and the word
Was god. Responsibility enormous – politicians, scientists
engineers and designers – their mistakes cost the earth the life
and health of millions.
The victims continue to suffer, moral duty to help them
moral duty to help them while continuing to limit ecological
consequences of this disaster.
You waited three weeks – silence – Soviet motto – don’t seek advice
from abroad – but who would know just how to handle the heat – put out the fire
and put out the light – no one could have caused more damage to Russia
than the Russians themselves – now the day of remembrance draws near.
I see, I hear, I feel you.
Olexiy Breus
Former operator at Chernobly reactor number four
Now as journalist and artist
April 26 1986
I drank coffee
And got on the bus.
There had been an accident – power station visible
I saw
The destroyed
Unit – I understood
“hair standing on end.”
April 26
A mass grave
Why had they brought me there – to supply
Water to cool the reactor
Level 27
I did not know the precise
Level of radiation
Puddle was 800 micro-roentgen per second
1000 times greater
than the permitted
dose intensity
a mass grave.
I calculated
I worked
Two more days on
The third unit.
Then withdrawn
I was forbidden from working.
A mass grave.
Autumn 1986
All evacuated staff
Allotted flats in Kiev.
Vladimir’s city.
The Kievans were lucky
To lose them – a degree of hostility
Is not a mass grave.
No windows – floors open
Rain – there was
Radioactive fallout.
September 1986
My daughter
Born in Leningrad
I carefully check the flat
Before bringing
Her to Kiev.
I got
A radiation meter
The contamination was so high
That it went off the scale
This was not
An everyday
Domestic tool
It calculated for nuclear
Power stations.
Radiation found
The dirtiest place
Was the windowsill
Under the paint
They removed the paint
Others had it under
The wallpaper
The changed the wallpaper
They cleaned the walls.
You could call
The dosimetrist
From the housing department
They came
They saw
They measured
The situation
As a whole
The gamma background.
Chernobyl
I cannot erase it
From my life.
It is in me forever
Nothing will wash it out.
It is not impressions
Not memories
It is more
It is deeper
It the deep
In the soul.
Oleg Ryazanov
Control room shift manager
Chernobyl nuclear power station reactors 1 and 2
I didn’t work here
when the accident occurred.
I worked
at a different
nuclear power station.
I was taking my baby
daughter
to my mother-in-law
near Odessa.
At first I did
not
believe them.
I moved
to Chernobyl
because the package
offer was good
more pay
bigger flat,
but I did have
some concerns –
was it the best
place for my daughter.
This was outweighed
by other factors.
I earn about
4,000 hryvnia/month
$800 quite high
in Ukraine
a very good salary.
My job
is to keep the reactor
under control
to keep the water cooling
system running
to monitor
the spent fuel tanks.
A chain reaction is
possible
because this reactor
contains fuel – come September
the license runs out
they plan it to remove
the fuel by then.
Soon, my job
will cease to exist.
I can only do this job.
Ukraine
is preparing to build
new reactors
this will take a long time
the political situation
is unstable.
The next government
could drop
the idea.
I don’t rule
out going to work
abroad – people have
gone to China and Iran.
I would not go
to Iran
but China
is a possibility.
Igor Komissarenko
Professor Igor Vasilevich Komissarenko
Surgeon, Institute of Endocrinology, Kiev
Great accuracy is needed
when operating
on the thyroid gland.
You must not harm
the major nerves
in the neck
or the parathyroid gland.
We remove
the whole thyroid gland
in cases
of thyroid cancer.
This is when the cancer
is growing in more than one place
about three – and – a half – or four years
after the accident
mostly among children.
The closer to the source
to the Chernobyl region
the more cases of cancer.
The further
the fewer.
The children
were affected most
they were growing
they breathed it in
they drank it in milk.
In 1991, 1992, 1993
we reached a plateau.
50 cases a year. Then
in 2003
the number of cases
among children declined
Why?
The increase in cases
of thyroid cancer among adults
began after five years
and increased sharply after
10 years. Diagnostics have improved.
Now it is rare to find
children with big
cancer and lots of
metastases , but it still
happens with adults.
Today, twenty years later
the number of child
patients is one-and-one half
or two times higher
than before the accident.
This is due to other
sources of pollution.
The ecological situation
is generally bad. Iodine was not
the only isotope
thrown out
by Chernobyl.
It will end
when this generation
passes away.
Lena and Anya Kostuchenko
Lena Kosuchenko, 39 and her daughter Anya, 19.
Chernobyl zone evacuees in Kiev.
I was five months’ pregnant when the accident occurred.
My husband and I were spending
the weekend at my mother’s hosue in Kopachi,
a village just south of the power station.
We woke up Saturday morning
decided to go Chernobyl,
it is the nearest town
to buy maternity clothes.
At the bus stop we saw many fire engines and troop
carriers on the main road – we waited and waited
no bus came – a policeman told us there would be
no buses – there had been an accident. There had been
small accidents before, so we did not worry. We worked
in the garden
all day Sunday I had to go
and work in Pripyat again
there were no buses – we set off
on foot – I began to feel very ill
my husband helped me home
then walked to Pripyat alone.
He got back, the town had been evacuated
I was out of bed – outside a policeman
finally told me the truth.
There was high radiation and pregnant women
should get out at all costs.
I did not even know what radiation was.
We drove to Ivanki
two days later I was
in the hospital doctors threw away
my clothes and decontaminated me
in a cold shower there were many
pregnant women there the doctors
said we would all have abortions
or induced births – they did
some abortions quickly then changed
their mind and we would give birth
after all we went to Chop then to Mykolaylev
near the Black Sea. In each new town
I threw away my clothes – they were contaminated
by my own radioactive body.
Anya was born
two months early – she was big
a five and a half pound baby
with unformed nails and colored yellow
incubated – I was not allowed
to see her for eight days. Later in Kiev
specialists hospitalized her
on sight – you could not then
say it was on account of Chernobyl.
It could be anything
except Chernobyl much later
a hematology professor told me
I had been very unlucky
I was in the wrong place
at the wrong time.
Anya is my houseplant.
She has a very rare
blood disease and almost no
immunity in 2004 she caught
meningitis and was in a coma
for three days – it was told it was all over
But she rose like Christ from the bed.
In the 1990s a law was passed
promising benefits to Chernobyl
invalids, but nothing to children
invalids. Together with other parents
I formed Flowers in the Wormwood
We successfully lobbied for the law
to be changed.
There exists
the tendency to play down
the problem
of Chernobyl
if possible
to forget it.
Once
The 20th anniversary has passed
I think
the state
will begin
to withdraw
its support.
Hanna Semenenko, age 78
Resident of Chernobyl zone village, Ilyintsi.
Evacuated to Yahotin, 160k away, but went back.
Oh God
how they tricked us!
They said – they were
taking us away for
three days
and they took us
to the end of the earth.
To the authorities
we handed over our lives
cows, calves, pigs.
We left everything
behind, we took nothing
with us
but our souls.
I spent the winter
in Yahotin
came back here
in the spring.
There was nothing in Yahotin
but steepe
Here we have rivers and forests.
So many of our
young died there.
I wouldn’t go back.
I would rather die.
My brother
lived here.
In the first years
after the accident
his daughter married
had a child, a boy
as healthy
as an oak – they lived here
what kind of radiation
do you call that?
Officials, they come, they check
us – check our food
our clothes.
There is nowhere
As clean as here!
They deceived us
drove people
to the ends of the earth
out of sight.
Where is the radiation?
In Yahotin
the levels were higher.
They took us.
36 people in the village
we have electricity, thank God
I get water nearby,
we grow potatoes
cabbages and tomatoes
and mobile shops
visit us twice
a week –
people who live here
are old like me or older
there a couple who are
90 or more.
Tomorrow
they may no longer
Be here.
October Requiem
For Anna Politkovskaya
A thousand souls
to see you
and carnations
their powdery scent
to fill the ugly space
and candles to light
the darkness – it is a congregation
of the astonished
those who knew you
and those who knew
your words.
Brave is hardly enough
to describe your actions.
You who have eaten the knowledge
of your death foretold.
You who have negotiated with gunmen
listened where no one else
dared to even speak
You who have written
what should not have been
acknowledged. You who have taken
the plight of the ordinary
conscript against his commanding
officer – You who have said they are human
too in Chechnya. And after all that
you loved your county
and its broken people
in the face of skewed
democracy. Anna, I live
in the land of the free
and the home of the brave
but we don’t see the flag
draped coffins arrive – we don’t
see the mother, the wife, the lover,
the father, the brother, the son, the daughter
waiting to take that body home,
denied our national grief – it’s blood
for oil –God where he hardly belongs
divide and conquer – be still –
No one should die in vain.
When he came into the apartment
did you know
what did you feel
at that last moment
did you look at him
the hired assassin
and ask – have you come to shoot me?
or to fuck me?
It is the same
word in Russian
Did you beg for mercy?
Did you call out to the Mother of God?
Or did you stand there
and whisper
I have long been expecting you.
I won’t cover the mirrors
40 days you’ll wander the earth
come settle here – as you should
never die – be spirit to us all
instill your fearless heart among us
who take for granted what is
our birthright
the simple thing
the freedom
of our speech.
Bride Green
For Ahmad Shah Masoud
For you
there is a green
dome – a shrine
of a grave
site – the mountains
where you once were the lion
and escaped death invite
the strong and the damned
to visit – to leave a stone
to say a prayer
and to believe
God is
Most merciful
and compassionate.
A decade in your shadow
he lived – who planned
your death – a television
set – packed deep with
shrapnel and journalists
with fake Belgian
passports
to ignite the bomb
and you wanted
the world you were
not a part of – to know
that you were good
followed the prophet.
on a horse
that took you
to heaven.
He is dead now
finally arrived
shot in the face
the chest – where
you too burned from
ignition – he was hiding
in the country you so
hated – where no one
could be
trusted = he is dead
taken quickly – betrayed
washed by his enemies
wrapped in a shroud
in a bag weighed down
with stones – verses read
from the Holy Book
The word of God
then dropped into
the Arabian sea – engulfed
by the tide to sink
to sink
to be eaten by the fishes
not multiplying into loaves
no miracle – no trace
no bride green shrine
to hold his bones.
It is over.
It is over.
Jung in the hands of the Mujahideen
Father
born on the eve of World War I
I live your conscience
daily reminders that
the world is a frightening place
you never dreamed as you spent
the Second World War traveling west
landscapes away from your home
that New York would be the site
of terrorist activities
on the day of your 50th
wedding anniversary
in the third millennium,
in your second century.
As a soldier,
you lived Central Asia,
traveled the Middle East
Byelorussian, in a British
uniform, having escaped death
in a soviet prison
the names of cities
roll off your tongue like Turkish
delight, now ruined
Beirut, beleaguered Damascus
starving Baghdad
mysterious Alexandria
and bleeding Jerusalem
I played store with your war
souvenir coins
turning over the bas relief of pyramids
and camels
my kingdom for a beggarly denier
I see the world is round
and hold it in my child’s hands
well traveled in your stories
I pray now that we can realign
against the evil
religion brings to the oppressed
that magi lift their hearts to god
and climb the mountains of Babel
holding words instead of weapons,
and as their voices reach
heaven
God hears the faithful ask forgiveness
for themselves and all of history.
amen and amen
Uneven Tele
pathy
The goddess reaches her
hand to her lord of the
dead husband – crowned
in the afterlife waiting
in the reflexive infinitive
mood – the eternity
of nothing moves in
this tomb – her uneven
telepathy brought his
severed pieces into divine
circumference and she
was able to raise the
Dead. This is the story
the one that plays on
diamond needles skipping
the scratched grooves in
prescient recordings – we
keep hearing the strains
of memorized music
in unquiet activity
resonated in humours
divine balance of our
sanguine melancholy
and phlegmatic bile bilious
formation of our own
uneven telepathy.
____________________________________________
BIO
Anne Elezabeth Pluto grew up in Brooklyn, NY is a Russian immigrant family. She is Professor of Literature and Theatre at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA where she is the artistic director of the Oxford Street Players, the university’s Shakespeare troupe. She is an alumna of Shakespeare & Company. She was a member of the Boston small press scene in the late 1980s. Her chapbook, The Frog Princess, was published by White Pine Press. Her e-book, Lubbock Electric, was published by Argotist ebooks in 2012 .Her latest work appears in, The Buffalo Evening News, Unlikely Stories: Episode IV, Mat Hat Lit, Pirene’s Fountain, and The Enchanting Verses Literary Review. She has been a member of Worcester Shakespeare Company since 2011.