Summary
"Neighbors" was originally published in Clarke's 1989 collection Letting in the Rumour. The poem describes the consequences of nuclear fallout after the disastrous explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 1986. The speaker (a plural "we") describes how a particular spring came late one year. Everyone observes the sky and studies the lines on a map connecting points with the same atmospheric pressure as they look for evidence of fallout. Nature is also affected by the blast, which delays bird mating. Crows drink from the eyes of lambs.
Small birds fall from the skies in Finland. The particular species include song-thrushes, warblers, and nightingales. The speaker refers to the song-thrushes as "smudged signatures on light" as they make their way north. The warblers also fly migratory routes northward.
In the third stanza, the birds' flight fails, causing them to fall over long, narrow, deep inlets of the sea between high cliffs. Toxic radioactive particles pollute the earth, air, and waters. The bird's lungs fill with "gall" (a biblical allusion to bitterness) as a result of the poisoned atmosphere (7). Children are warned to beware the fallen birds despite their beauty. In Poland, people spill milk because the blast polluted pastures and affected the grazing animals.
In the fourth stanza, the speaker describes all this turmoil as relating to the old myth of Pandora's box. In Ukraine where the blast occurred, the wind carries the contaminated air out of "its box of sorrows" to other countries (12). In the following stanza, the setting moves to the following spring on a Welsh hill. Here, a lamb sips cesium, a radioactive isotope. When a child lifts her head to drink poisoned rain, the cesium enters her blood and likely leads to disease.
The blast unites these little towns in Europe as neighbors all tied to Chernobyl. On an individual scale, people feel empathy for the burnt firemen and Russian children affected by the accident.
The sickness that burgeons in the aftermath of the blast at Chernobyl democratizes Europe. Everyone waits and watches for spring bird migrations, looking for birds to return with green in their voices. The final stanza is a single line composed of the Russian word for openness, the Welsh words for blue light, and the English phrase "A first break of blue" (22).
Analysis
In her poem "Neighbors," Gillian Clarke focuses on how the disastrous 1986 blast at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine unified people in different European countries. This blast is known as the worst disaster in the history of nuclear power generation. Despite the sense of unification in the notion of neighborliness, Clarke also employs a darkly ironic tone that starkly communicates the horrific consequences of the accident. Hope and horror coexist through juxtaposition, though Clarke ultimately ends on an optimistic note.
Both the human and nonhuman world were impacted by the disaster at Chernobyl. The blast's radioactive fallout contaminated the air, earth, and water in several countries across Europe. In other words, human-created borders do not contain the disaster. This poem also spans the course of two springs, perhaps beginning soon after the accident and the following year. The particular countries mentioned are Finland, Poland, Ukraine, Wales, and Russia.
Clarke writes this poem in the first-person plural to convey unification. The "we" reads like a chorus lamenting the tragic and far-reaching consequences of the blast. In the first stanza, the speaker (using the plural "we") looks for changes in the sky and studies charts for isobars (points of equal atmospheric pressure). According to the Radiation Emergency Medical Management team of the US Department of Health and Human Services, response teams "create maps of areas expected to be contaminated by fallout and predict how radiation levels are expected to change over time." That the isobars are "shouldering" could signal a jostling movement, indicating contamination.
The poem is written in tercets that echo the Welsh triad, a form of literary composition that arranged subjects or statements in groups of three. Clarke departs from this form by writing primarily in English, eschewing a regular rhyme scheme, and including a final monostich (one-line stanza).
The first stanza begins in "that spring" (1). Because the accident occurred on April 26, 1986, it is possible that "that spring" refers to the following year. Though it would take much more nuclear firepower to cause what is known as a nuclear winter, spring arrives late in the poem, which indicates a prolonged winter. The climate is clearly affected by the blast, as are different species.
The poem focuses a great deal on birds to show the impact that the blast has on the natural world. In the first stanza, they are "late to pair" because of the physical and chemical disruptions from the accident. Birds also symbolize flight and freedom, evoking hope. But in the second stanza, the speaker describes how small birds such as song-thrushes, warblers, and nightingales fall in Finland. The sibilance and fricative alliteration in this stanza impart a sense of softness, perhaps to reflect the innocence of these birds. Their natural migratory patterns lead them through skies polluted with residual radioactive material. Their lungs fill with "gall" or bitterness as they fall over different landscapes (7).
Clarke also conveys innocence through the figures of children and lambs. Children are warned of "the dangerous beauty" of the fallen birds in the third stanza (8). This demonstrates merely a proximity to danger, while later in the fifth stanza, a child directly imbibes poisonous rain. The blast did not just cause death in the immediate aftermath, but also years later through illness. Exposure to radiation induced cancers and other diseases, causing thousands of premature deaths.
Radiation also affected animals, leading officials to cull both pets and livestock. The speaker in "Neighbours" focuses specifically on birds and lambs. Like children, lambs (young sheep) represent lost innocence. Crows drink from lamb eyes in the first stanza, an image that works physically and metaphorically to convey death. In the fifth stanza, (which occurs in the following spring), "a lamb sips caesium on a Welsh hill" (13). Neither the passage of time nor geographical borders prevent the spread of sickness resulting from nuclear fallout.
Clarke alludes to the Greek myth of Pandora's box when she writes about the "bitter air... / brought by the wind out of its box of sorrows" in the fourth stanza (11-12). In the myth, the gods seek to counter Prometheus' decision to help humankind. They trick his sister-in-law Pandora into opening a vessel filled with evil afflictions. Pandora, unable to resist her curiosity, opens the box and releases these afflictions upon humankind, much like how the blast at Chernobyl unleashed suffering. Only hope remains inside the box. As in the Greek myth, Clarke ultimately ends her poem with a hopeful tone.
Despite individual and political differences, distinct European nations united as "neighbors" in their suffering, giving the poem its title. But this sense of 'neighbourliness' is ironic because it takes a disaster as terrible as an accidental nuclear explosion to unite people (16). Likewise, the speaker calls the virus and toxin resulting from the blast "democra[tic]," referring to the equal way in which it affects the earth, people, and other natural beings (19).
Despite Clarke's dark irony, she ends on an uplifting note. The speaker (again speaking in the plural "we") watches for the birds' spring migrations, and expects one bird to return "with green in its voice" (21). Green, like new growth in spring, symbolizes hope. However, it is not the poem's final colorful image. The last line reads, "Glasnost. Golau glas. A first break of blue" (22). The word "glasnost" is a Russian concept referring to transparency and openness, and it applies specifically to the policy initiated by leader Mikhail Gorbachev. "Golau glas" is Welsh for "blue light," and it linguistically resembles "glasnost" through alliteration. The final words ("A first break of blue") evoke clear blue skies free of contaminants. Symbolically, Clarke ends on the notions of peace and new beginnings.
