The Diameter of the Bomb

(by Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000),
translated by Yehuda Amichai and Ted Hughes,
Selected Poems edited by Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort, Faber)

The diameter of the bomb was thirty centimeters
and the diameter of its effective range –
about seven meters.
And in it four dead and eleven wounded.
And around them in a greater circle
of pain and time are scattered
two hospitals and one cemetery.
But the young woman who was
buried where she came from
over a hundred kilometers away
enlarges the circle greatly.
And the lone man who weeps over her death
in a far corner of a distant country
includes the whole world in the circle.
And I won’t speak at all about the crying of orphans
that reaches to the seat of God
and from there onward, making
the circle without end and without God.

Death has consequences but never more so than when it is sudden and violent. The bomb itself was small – 30 cm is roughly the diameter of a large dinner plate. But its effective range was 7m; the approximate length of two cars. Amichai relates the 4 dead and 11 wounded to a wider and wider circle with reference to two hospitals, a cemetery and the dead woman who was loved by a man on the other side of the world. Was the woman the mother of the orphans he mentions? I think they are the children of the world who are left behind after all those other bombs in all those other cities, whose cries reach the seat of God – God who does nothing to stop the carnage and so does not stop the circle. So the crying reaches even farther onward, “making/ the circle without end and without God”. Because for those in the circle there is no God.

If Man was created, as opposed to evolving, then the omnipotent being who created him also created the man who made this particular bomb in order to kill people and who was, in effect, godless. So let’s blame God. If people want to allow God the power of our existence, then surely He must take some blame for the flaws in the construction of any man (woman, child or politically correct “other”) who causes such destruction? But blame is like praise, and should be meted out only when well deserved.

Because the real truth is that we are responsible for ourselves. Even for those who believe in God or Allah or any other deity, they must know that we were given the ability to think for ourselves or we’d be cabbages. It is our choice whether or not we leave an incendiary device in a place where it will devastate to maximum effect. We cannot argue that we were driven to it, any more than we are driven to hold our local council to ransom for the uneven paving stone that we tripped over because we weren’t looking, or the school, because we were injured while breaking and entering it. If we continue to believe that we are not to blame for the consequences of our own actions, then we are gullible fools who will never see where we are going.

For those who draw strength from the idea of God it doesn’t matter whether God exists or not. Only that the idea of a Supreme Being provides inner companionship, which manifests in the mind as new strength when one’s own strength may have failed. But in terms of blowing people to bits, Man has only himself to blame. God does not make bombs. It is not God’s fault that this bomb went off, nor is it the fault of the victims who are actually entitled, in this case, to blame the bomber. The responsibility rests solely with the bomber, and he (or she) cannot blame anyone else, or government or policy, for doing what he (or she) did. Perhaps when the diameter of the bomb in the poem reaches beyond the seat of God, and He appears unmoved and ineffective, it is because God knows it isn’t His fault. He blames us.

frieda.hughes@thetimes.co.uk

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