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Quite Contrary


The Japanese some forty years ago
let four reactors spring up in a row.

 

Anaesthetised by engineering pride,
they built the brutes on the Pacific side,


forgetting in their foolhardy decision,
tectonic faults don't augur well for fission.

 

Let four reactors spring up in a row --
for what would seismic green protesters know

 

of narrow islands in an earthquake zone
where Richter eight is not at all unknown,

 

where Kanto's trembling levelled Tokyo?
Let four reactors spring up in a row.

 

Let four reactors spring up in a row
and meditate in rueful afterglow

 

that it was daft -- yes, absolutely barmy
to build them within reach of a tsunami.

 

Geoff Lander