To Pilgrim

I weep for your storage pools
          crammed with negligence,
Their boron coats worn so thin
          they can not shield us
          from the long winter.

I mourn for your crusted knobs,
          your sleeping sensors:
I wail for lobsters and cod,
          for egret and tern:
          the pilot, the whale.

The term of your lease will end,
          in unquenchable
Fukushima effluence,
          borne on every tide:
          the wampum broken.

Seventeen Fifty-Seven
          saw chimneys toppled
From here to New Hampshire,
          but no one foresaw
          the Grand Banks barren.

They will say: cursed is the pilgrim
          for settling here,
Cursed is the land and ocean
          because of them, cursed
Are the radioactive
          bones of my fathers
          burning on that hill.