The Other Side of the Calculation (Oppenheimer)

Lyrics

[Verse 1]
You learned Sanskrit
because the Bhagavad Gita
was not the same book
in English
and you needed
the book
in the language
the book
dreamed in
because the sentence
you were going
to need
from the book
had a specific
weight
in Sanskrit
that the translation
had fumbled
the way
a customs form
fumbles
a love letter.

[Verse 2]
The test
was in a desert
in New Mexico
at five thirty
in the morning
in July
and the flash
was visible
for two hundred miles
and the sand
beneath the tower
turned to glass
and the glass
was a new mineral
the planet
had not
previously
contained
and they named
the glass
after the test site
the way
you name a child
after the place
it was born
when you
cannot bear
to name it
after what it
did.

[Chorus]
The sentence
from the Gita
arrived
in your prefrontal cortex
at the moment
the cloud
finished
forming —
*now I am become
death,
the destroyer
of worlds* —
and the sentence
tasted
like the green glass
underfoot
and like
the particular
cold
of a man
who has
just finished
the calculation
and is standing
on the other side
of it
looking back
at the person
he was
fifteen seconds ago
who still
believed
the calculation
was theoretical.

[Outro]
You spent
the rest
of your life
trying
to put the sentence
back
in the book
and the book
would not
take it back
because the book
had given it to you
in the right
language
at the right
moment
and the book
does not
accept returns.

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