Stern concrete structures stare silently out to sea

At Sizewell, Dounreay, Trawsfynydd;

And yet another four,

Stock still behind barbed wire fences

In a blossoming natural landscape,

Tombs for graphite reactor cores,

Untouchable for at least one hundred years –

Nuclear power plants beyond their sell-by date,

Decommissioned, deadly, dying,

Marked by Scholar Stones

Popova’s Project now on show

In Manchester.

Hideous legacy of our

Civilisation,

Carbon fourteen, half life five thousand years.

Sick ghosts of radioactivity,

The past poisoning the future,

Nowhere safe for storage,

Life-destroying hotspots

Written by Tony Mitchell

Photo by Kilian Karger on Unsplash