steaming: "The residential community and scientific laboratory of Los Alamos are located about 25 miles northwest of Santa Fe on the remote Pajarito Plateau, a volcanic shelf jutting from the eastern slope of the Jemez Mountains." (Niklaus & Feldman,1980)

Bombs: "What is the bomb? It is...the very wilderness of old in a different shape--no longer out there, i.e., in nature, but in here, e.g., in technology." (Giegerich,1987)

spongy ground: Mortandad Canyon one of three canyons that were, or are, used by Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory to dispose of liquid radioactive wastes. LASL officials claim that "the liquid effluent released to Mortandad Canyon (since 1952) is absorbed 'sponge-like' in the stream bed and banks..." (Niklaus & Feldman,1980)

unseen: Lilith has the talons of an owl which signify her demonic power and wisdom. She is "the Black Goddess of the dark vision beyond sight..." (Redgrove,1987)

screech: In Hebrew, one meaning of Lilith is "screech owl."

disloyal: "One element in Ragnarok, not mentioned in Voluspa but found in another poem, Vafpruonismal, is that of the Great Winter (Fimbulvetr). Snorri (Sturluson) puts this before the destruction of the world by fire and water, and precedes it again by three years of strife, when men forsake all the loyalties by which they are bound. (Davidson,1988)

wild heart: "The wild heart turned white in the woods; O the dark star fear / Of death, when the gold / Died in a grey cloud." (G. Trakl. From, "The Heart.")
pre-hostility: Military euphemism for peace.

environmental adjustment: Massive destruction of the environment.

collateral damage: The killing of civilians.

Snow: "Englishmen believed that the owl's calling heralded hail-storms and in Glamorgan (Wales) their hooting was supposed to foretell snow." (Armstrong,1970)

plutonium: "The liquid wastes, which include plutonium from the lab's main plutonium processing building, are collected in special tanks, where most of the radioactive wastes are extracted as solids and held for later shipment to WIPP (Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, Carlsbad, NM). The remaining radioactive liquid is sent to Mortandad Canyon." (Hester,1988)

migrating: "The contaminated canyon sediments now lie three-quarters of a mile from the lab's boundary--and San Ildefonso Pueblo land beyond." (Ibid.)

shrine: "In January Buffalo-Deer Dance...we observed in the center of the North Plaza (San Ildefonso Pueblo) a small shrine of four or five rocks and turkey down. When we inquired casually of a friend when this little shrine had been put there, she replied that it had been there all along. We did not press the point." (Whitman, 1969). "For the listener who listens in the snow, / And, nothing himself, beholds / Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is." (W. Stevens. From, "The Snow Man.")