...What is in a Name?...

In that I raise my hand 

to shield eyes from the Sun, 

I have there denied myself of 

   enlightenment. 

A blinded insight unto sunlight, 

but in truth just how much 

do you really need to know? 

That glow is still there 

whether that hand is raised or not. 

And as the heat grows in intensity, 

I glance away towards the ground 

and there can barely discern that 

I now have two shadows; not one. 

Well, for the time being anyway. 

 

Staring at the earth beneath my feet, 

I notice that one shadow darkens as 

the other in comparison wanes, 

and then, just as quickly, 

dwindles away and is gone. 

 

Two shadows. 

Two Suns. 

Some would say that 

this is an unnatural thing. 

 

Nom de guerre:

 

Bandicoot. Marshmallow. Harlem. 

 

At 5:45 A.M., on January 27^th of 1951, 

the United States performed its first 

atmospheric detonation of 

a one kiloton nuclear device. 

There in Nevada, 

the ground beneath was called 

“Frenchman Flat”. 

 

On this day, that 

false sun up there in the sky 

was given the name “Able”. 

 

The father of the atomic bomb 

was named Robert Oppenheimer. 

The father of the hydrogen bomb 

was named Edward Teller. 

I imagine that Oppenheimer 

was rather hoping someone 

would come along to 

fully take away his notoriety, but no. 

He was and remains the original ‘father’.

Yes, in this case, 

the given name sticks. 

 

Barracuda. Gumdrop. Sea Foam. 

 

That name “Able”?

All those detonations 

out there in the Nevada desert 

had to be named. 

 

Double Play. Everson. Akbar. 

 

You create a thing… you name it. 

 

At Alamogordo, New Mexico, 

at 5:30 A.M. on June 7^th of 1945, 

something was created. 

Sand was turned into glass 

by way of a very special process. 

Yes, and that new glass had to be named.

It was called ‘Trinitite’. 

 

By the way, 

we made allot of Trinitite. 

We went from nil to plethora 

in the blink of an shuttered eye. 

 

Knickerbocker. Horehound. Wineskin. 

 

Seven years after our manmade sun ‘Able’

appeared on the horizon, 

my parents created 

a thing they named “Jack”. 

 

That which is me was made of 

all the things that made them, 

but unlike my parents, 

I had one extra ingredient in my makeup.

Something which didn’t exist 

when they were conceived. 

There in my biologic structure 

lies the tiniest presence of 

something called “Pu-239”. 

Something someone 

also came to name Plutonium. 

I’d like to think that 

all that is me is all natural to 

this domain we call Earth. 

But now 

I am all natural, 

plus one. 

 

Yes, I suppose that I, someone’s son, 

was born having a special affinity 

with another person’s sun. 

Son of a sun. 

A sun named “Able”. 

 

Noggin. Freeze-Out. Pile-Driver.  

 

    Jack. 

 

What is in a name?

 

Ó05 Jack David Hubbell