The following is a memory from May 20, 1959 in Long Beach, California. It is written as the diary entry of a fourteen year old girl.
They set off the city-wide air raid warning siren for the last time today. They announced it in the papers yesterday. Sort of makes you wonder why they sounded it at all, since this was to be the last. Why not just announce that on the scheduled day for the siren, there would be nothing—because it was all over. Kind of dumb.
Well, the thing sounded off just as it has for several years now. We all heard it at school, but no one left the room. There was no air raid drill. We all just stopped everything for a moment while the thing bleated out its noise. And for just a moment afterward we were still silent. Then everything went on as if nothing special had happened.
Except I know I felt different, and maybe some of the others did too. I mean, after all, what did this mean? It meant that there is no purpose in giving warning if a bomb is heading our way. There can be no escape from the fallout, no safe place.
Of course, it’s not like we didn’t all know this before today. But the last siren got me to thinking how things have changed. I can still remember in elementary when we were at recess and told to lie flat on the ground and cover our heads and necks when the air raid drill sounded. Even then I thought it was a foolish thing to do. I mean, it was lying down and saying to the bomb pilot, “Here we are, all laid out and ready for you to drop your bomb on us.” I thought we should have been looking for a place to hide instead, but that wasn’t what we were told to do.
Inside the school we were told to duck under our desks, cover our heads and necks and turn our backs to the windows. That made a lot more sense to me. At least you were under some sort of cover.
Later as we learned from the discoveries the army made by dropping bombs in the Nevada desert, air raid drills had us out in the halls squished together between the doors of our classroom. There we stood with our noses pressed into the back of someone else’s head until the “all clear” bell sounded.
By the time I was in sixth grade, we pretty much knew it was a useless exercise. I can remember standing in the hall and looking up at the row of windows that ran the length of the hall. The Nevada test had told us that the glass would be blown out, thereby making our sanctuary useless.
In seventh grade, they finally stopped making us march out into the hall. The whole exercise was simply to “be quiet and wait for news or the “all-clear” signal. In other words, wait to be incinerated or to learn you all have been radiated to death with nothing to do but suffer until you die.
The Civil Defense signs are still scattered about the city. At one time, they thought any building with a basement could be an emergency bomb shelter. One of those signs was posted by the church at the end of my street. But the basement there has windows at the street level, so once again—useless. Also, it was too small to house all the people on my street whose houses don’t have basements. And by the time you reached it from half-way down the block, it would be too late anyhow.
Suzy, my use-to-be friend, who lives down the street, has a basement. She took me down once to show me how her family had stocked it with emergency water and food stuff, mostly cans. It was a really small basement, barely big enough for her family (two older brothers, Suzy and her parents). They were a little worried about not having room for neighbors who might need help, but there really just wasn’t a lot of room. Of course, that was before we knew hiding in a basement wasn’t going to be much use.
Anyway, hearing that siren today made me remember all this. Oh, yes, and there was that day when the windows shook in our sixth grade classroom at the exact time they had announced they were setting off that big explosion in Nevada. Other people said they thought a sonic boom shook the windows, but there’s always a thunder-like boom and there wasn’t any that day. Some said it was just the wind, but there wasn’t any wind. Others blamed a mini-earthquake, but the floor didn’t shake. No, I was pretty sure that the concussion from the Nevada bomb made our windows shake. When you think that we were way out on the California coast, and the bomb was way inland in Nevada, that’s pretty scary. That’s pretty much when I realized nothing can protect you from an atomic bomb.
Well, all these thoughts have been haunting me today because of that last air raid siren. I think of it now as a sort of moan of despair or a death knell (like in a poem) declaring once and for all time that hope is only a word locked in a box—Pandora’s box. It’s a non-reality.
I think, or maybe it was just my imagination, that some of the other kids were also feeling pretty down because of the message of that last siren today. At least, it seemed like there was a damper on the whole day, sort of like when the weather has been gloomy for days without relief.
I guess it helps to say all this stuff, even if it’s only here in my diary. No one at school wanted to talk about it much. And Mom’s such an overboard optimist that it’s really useless to talk to her about it. Dad might be better, but he’s back in San Francisco until June. Gram’s no use either. I don’t think she quite gets it, or maybe she just chooses not to believe. I don’t know.
Anyway, I’m really kind of down today because of this. I don’t know what else to say, so I guess I’ll just sign off here. bye.
#Anti-NuclearArmaments #Anti-War
One Hike in a California Summer
The dust lay heavy
On the trail
On the leaves of trees
On the scrub undergrowth
And the rocks everywhere.
Dust nearly choking
Every heat-laden breath
As we trudged forward
Sweating with backpack burdens
Toward a campground
As yet unseen.
Step after burning step
We moved along, some staggering,
Till at last we descended
Into a small glen
Washed with the breath
Of sweet brook water.
Here at last was shelter
From the sun and dust.
Evergreen trees stretched tall
Casting cool shadows
Into which we pooled
Settling our tents and packs
Making our home for the night.
Sleep, deep and soothing
Came easily there
In the forested quiet
Kissed by the music of water.
Our long hot walk forgotten, forgiven
Within the glade.
We rose in the morning
Reluctant to leave
As the new day’s heat
Already sifted down
Through the trees,
And circled us like a predator
As we climbed out.
Our reluctant feet plodded upward
While our minds drifted
Back to the cool oasis
Left behind which still energized
The surge once more toward home.
#CaliforniaandSummer #SummerPoem #HikingPoem
CRACK THE WHIP
Swing out and away,
Laugh and play,
It’s only a game
BUT
Never let go of the hand
My Brothers,
Or like meteors
We’ll go spinning
Hold on! Hold On!
#ChildhoodGames
THAT OLD TIRE
Down the hill it went. Faster and faster,
From the meadow top to its bottom,
Spun that old rubber tire round and round.
Curled inside was one very small boy
With his knuckles white, screaming and laughing
While clinging tightly to its inside rim:
One half scared, the other half a gleeful bliss
As he plunged downward, rolling ever swifter.
That old tire rolled to a stop some fifteen feet
Inside a downhill thicket
Where the boy tumbled out upon the ground,
Ignoring the small bruises and scratches,
Joyfully shouting of his extreme pleasure.
He cries out, “May I try that again?!”
#OldTireUses #ChildhoodGames
Author’s Notes
GLASS RAIN—the poetry by Margaret Roxby
“CRACK THE WHIP” was found among the poet’s papers. It was written as the result of a challenge at her local chapter of Chaparral Poets to use childhood activities as a subject or inspiration.
REFRACTIONS—the poetry of Robert Roxby
“THAT OLD TIRE” describes an adventure of the author’s in 1929. The poem first appeared in his collection Reflections on a Lifetime.
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS—the poetry of Kathleen Roxby
“One Hike in a California Summer” was written in response to a prompt in the 2021 workshop, “Writing Through the Apocalypse”, hosted by Marcia Meier.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Readers who write in response to one of the prompts listed each month in Splintered Glass, may see their work presented here on the last week of that month. Though poems are preferred, short prose work will also be considered for publication.
Guidelines for submission:
SPLINTERS FOR AUGUST 2021
SPLINTERS FOR AUGUST 2021
THE LAST BATTLEFIELD
He rides alone.
His tribe is many, but he rides alone.
Mounted on a wearied steed
And heavily weaponed,
He’s dressed full-armored for the fight.
Alone, with no enemy before him,
He knows the greatest fear.
Armed beyond the possibility of defeat,
His jaw tenses, his heart pounds in his chest.
Alone and seeming safe,
He reins still his dying beast
In the desert peace
As his eyes search unbelieving
The empty horizon.
There, beyond the world’s end,
Just beyond his human vision,
There must wait the final enemy
On the last dreadful field of battle.
#BattlefieldPoems #Anti-ArmanentProliferation #Anti-WarPoem
WE DISCUSS THE BOMB
Ambushed midway in an alien domain
Our thoughts reel, defenseless.
Into nightmare, rage of ruined world,
We fall
To writhe convulsed,
To gulp black gases,
To stare at hydrogen light with lidless eyes,
To sense at last the ultimate horror:
Not that we might die,
But that we might survive.
#Anti-NuclearArmaments
THE LAST AIR RAID SIREN
The following is a memory from May 20, 1959 in Long Beach, California. It is written as the diary entry of a fourteen year old girl.
They set off the city-wide air raid warning siren for the last time today. They announced it in the papers yesterday. Sort of makes you wonder why they sounded it at all, since this was to be the last. Why not just announce that on the scheduled day for the siren, there would be nothing—because it was all over. Kind of dumb.
Well, the thing sounded off just as it has for several years now. We all heard it at school, but no one left the room. There was no air raid drill. We all just stopped everything for a moment while the thing bleated out its noise. And for just a moment afterward we were still silent. Then everything went on as if nothing special had happened.
Except I know I felt different, and maybe some of the others did too. I mean, after all, what did this mean? It meant that there is no purpose in giving warning if a bomb is heading our way. There can be no escape from the fallout, no safe place.
Of course, it’s not like we didn’t all know this before today. But the last siren got me to thinking how things have changed. I can still remember in elementary when we were at recess and told to lie flat on the ground and cover our heads and necks when the air raid drill sounded. Even then I thought it was a foolish thing to do. I mean, it was lying down and saying to the bomb pilot, “Here we are, all laid out and ready for you to drop your bomb on us.” I thought we should have been looking for a place to hide instead, but that wasn’t what we were told to do.
Inside the school we were told to duck under our desks, cover our heads and necks and turn our backs to the windows. That made a lot more sense to me. At least you were under some sort of cover.
Later as we learned from the discoveries the army made by dropping bombs in the Nevada desert, air raid drills had us out in the halls squished together between the doors of our classroom. There we stood with our noses pressed into the back of someone else’s head until the “all clear” bell sounded.
By the time I was in sixth grade, we pretty much knew it was a useless exercise. I can remember standing in the hall and looking up at the row of windows that ran the length of the hall. The Nevada test had told us that the glass would be blown out, thereby making our sanctuary useless.
In seventh grade, they finally stopped making us march out into the hall. The whole exercise was simply to “be quiet and wait for news or the “all-clear” signal. In other words, wait to be incinerated or to learn you all have been radiated to death with nothing to do but suffer until you die.
The Civil Defense signs are still scattered about the city. At one time, they thought any building with a basement could be an emergency bomb shelter. One of those signs was posted by the church at the end of my street. But the basement there has windows at the street level, so once again—useless. Also, it was too small to house all the people on my street whose houses don’t have basements. And by the time you reached it from half-way down the block, it would be too late anyhow.
Suzy, my use-to-be friend, who lives down the street, has a basement. She took me down once to show me how her family had stocked it with emergency water and food stuff, mostly cans. It was a really small basement, barely big enough for her family (two older brothers, Suzy and her parents). They were a little worried about not having room for neighbors who might need help, but there really just wasn’t a lot of room. Of course, that was before we knew hiding in a basement wasn’t going to be much use.
Anyway, hearing that siren today made me remember all this. Oh, yes, and there was that day when the windows shook in our sixth grade classroom at the exact time they had announced they were setting off that big explosion in Nevada. Other people said they thought a sonic boom shook the windows, but there’s always a thunder-like boom and there wasn’t any that day. Some said it was just the wind, but there wasn’t any wind. Others blamed a mini-earthquake, but the floor didn’t shake. No, I was pretty sure that the concussion from the Nevada bomb made our windows shake. When you think that we were way out on the California coast, and the bomb was way inland in Nevada, that’s pretty scary. That’s pretty much when I realized nothing can protect you from an atomic bomb.
Well, all these thoughts have been haunting me today because of that last air raid siren. I think of it now as a sort of moan of despair or a death knell (like in a poem) declaring once and for all time that hope is only a word locked in a box—Pandora’s box. It’s a non-reality.
I think, or maybe it was just my imagination, that some of the other kids were also feeling pretty down because of the message of that last siren today. At least, it seemed like there was a damper on the whole day, sort of like when the weather has been gloomy for days without relief.
I guess it helps to say all this stuff, even if it’s only here in my diary. No one at school wanted to talk about it much. And Mom’s such an overboard optimist that it’s really useless to talk to her about it. Dad might be better, but he’s back in San Francisco until June. Gram’s no use either. I don’t think she quite gets it, or maybe she just chooses not to believe. I don’t know.
Anyway, I’m really kind of down today because of this. I don’t know what else to say, so I guess I’ll just sign off here. bye.
#Anti-NuclearArmaments #Anti-War
Author’s Notes
GLASS RAIN—the poetry by Margaret Roxby
“WE DISCUSS THE BOMB” was first published in 1972 in Bitterroot. The poem was inspired by a conversation she had with her young son.
REFRACTIONS –a memoir piece by Kathleen Roxby
“THE LAST AIR RAID SIREN” speaks of the author’s thoughts as she experienced the changing war preparations of the atomic age in the years following the end of WWII.
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS—the poetry of Kathleen Roxby
“THE LAST BATTLEFIELD” was written many years ago during the Cold War arms race after the author read that both the US and USSR had stockpiled enough nuclear armaments to destroy the world three times over. However, the first time she shared the poem with a poetry group, one of the listeners—whose husband was dying of cancer—saw her husband as the warrior in the poem. The poet has since refused to explain this poem when she presents it. It is included this month because of the anniversary of bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Japan just before the ending of WWII in the Pacific region.