Gayla Bradberry
My mother died of cancer at age 51, in 1963. I was 16 years old. She had received radiation treatments for 4 years previously at a medical facility in El Paso, TX, 200 miles away from our home in New Mexico. My father also died of cancer 5 years later after being hospitalized for 6 months in Albuquerque, NM, 250 miles in the other direction from home.
My family had a “primitive” cabin (one room, no plumbing, drywall, or electricity) in Lincoln County, NM, where my father was a partner with his dad and brother in a cattle operation. Upon their marriage in 1933, my parents built that cabin. Around 1953, they purchased their own 160 acre ranch nearby. Both properties were in the direction of the plutonium cloud that drifted after the Trinity Test at White Sands in 1945. My brothers and I had to liquidate the ranch in 1970 in order to pay the bills for my dad’s hospitalization and treatments.
Beginning around 1960, my extended family noticed the alarming number of family members, all from Lincoln County, who were sick or dying of cancers. Five of my father’s siblings died. Now we are aware of 6 cousins in the second generation who have died. Five more of the cousins undergo treatments for cancer. My son has a genetic disorder which prevents him from having children. I am the carrier of the genetic marker.
The grief and emptiness I felt for decades about the loss of my parents turned to shock and rage when I read an article in the local newspaper in 2017 linking the Trinity Test of 1945 with increased cancers. The poem, The Canyon of the Shadow of Death, is autobiographical, mourning the poisoning of a beautiful place. The poem Holy Trinity expresses the conflict between the holy trinity and an unholy one, America’s holocaust.
The Canyon of the Shadow of Death-My New Mexico legacy
By Gayla Bradberry
The hearts of ranches, corrals, cabins, sheds, gates, plus groves of golden aspens were strung along a thread of winding path, ever thinning as it stretched toward the peak.
Herefords roamed randomly, then plodded in formation toward the pasture spring.
Mares stood, sleek in the dappled summer sun of a meadow.
Starbursts of white blooms were transforming into clusters of elderberries.
Sheep-sorrel hid shyly along the trail edges.
Indian paintbrush flamed in the graceful clearings.
The folks labored, loyal to the land by treasuring water, nurturing soil, guarding forests, tending animals.
Shy, the families preferred their own kin, avoided throngs, lived close to the ground, and prayed over the progress of war which raged on distant shores.
The seasons and the sun, births and deaths guided their plans.
They lived in isolation and in place.
A summer morning arrived with the gardens dense, orchards pregnant, a rooster’s cheer.
A rude blast, distant and unwarned, interrupted the normal calm.
Ominous, but no explanations on the morning radio report.
So, as always, the ranchers carried on with morning chores. They pumped water from the cisterns, fed the livestock, milked the cow.
Neighbors inquired, surmised, shrugged. Some, returning from work away, brought news of some scientific test or military gadget.
So, as always, the ranchers carried on with evening chores. They pumped water from the cisterns, fed the livestock, milked the cow.
A calendar page later, the morning ag report was interrupted with a report of national news. American B-29 bombers dropped a nuclear device on Japan, resulting in widespread devastation and death.
Then, a September surrender, victory, with celebrations nationwide. World War II was over. The soldiers could come home.
Decades passed, shaping a postmodern world. A bizarre explosion forgotten.
As always, the ranchers carried on.
Then a partner’s hazel-eyed wife fell ill.
A grim diagnosis, cells gone awry. The slow digression.
A Kodak exposure exposed more than film.
Television commentaries leaked out shrouded information about radioactive toxicity from a mushroom cloud in 1945.
The family remembered the day, the dust, the effects.
Over time, six adult siblings from one valley with leukemias, lymphomas, myelomas.
Appointments, travel, blood counts, sterile examination rooms, pain, then final separation. Living sacrifices.
And more. The ranchers’ sons and daughters in hospitals. The dread. The horrors repeated. The appalling realization.
Tumors, chemo, strangers, funerals, foreclosures. The fallen and the falling. The family’s legacy of death continues.
The malignant anger and helplessness disturbs, aware of the betrayal by a government established “to preserve and protect.”
For what destroyed the enemy, also destroyed the peaceful native patriots,
Poisoned without warning, without apology, without honor.
Holy Trinity
By Gayla Bradberry
Holy Trinity
Father- creator and provider
Son-willing savior
Spirit-purifier and guide
Who livest and reigneth now and forever.
Unholy Trinity
Fathers and mothers-cursed by cancers
Sons and daughters-generational traumas
Spirits-shattered by a remorseless government
Innocent citizens unknowingly harmed on behalf of a weapon.
Then and now
Fathers’ voices- whispers, moans, rarely heard
Sons’ voices-crying out in rage and pain
Spirits’ voices-rising, aware, with souls afire
Respect their witness.
Discern their truth.
Honor their sacrifices.
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.