For twenty years or so
I've come to work in this same place
A building known as Beta-1
Where once men used machines
Called calutrons
To fortify the fissile stuff
To make Hiroshima's uranium bomb.
But that was fifty years ago
And this is now.
Are we better for this?

Throughout my work
For search of atom's peace
I've worked to find
The power God's nature brings
Through men's inevitable intervention.
Are we better for this?

Last month a pair of mourning doves
Built a nest for eggs to hatch
In the preserved metal structures
Of one magnet of these calutrons
Now set aside for history's scene
Outside my workplace, Beta-1.

Two weeks ago I saw two dovelings hatch
And yesterday I saw them fly
Two young doves I have come to call
My Fat Man and my Little Boy.
And still I ask myself this daily quiz:
Are we better for this?

How do we dare to separate
the peace from war that atoms bring?
How do we dare to separate
God's nature from man's use of it?
How do we dare to watch these doves
And not rethink man's cruelty
That rained on Japan's innocent ones
In a place still called Hiroshima?

And if we can but separate such thoughts
Are we better for this?