can i remove the atom?

recur-with-atom.clj

(def airplanes {:planes
 {:plane
  [{:make "Cessna",
    :year "1977",
    :model {:#text "MoonDart", :at-color "blue"},
    :owner ["mitch" "glen" "paulie"],
    :action
    [{:#text "sample text - landed the plane and it was windy.",
      :at-type "landing",
      :at-weather "windy",
      :at-whitespace_attribute "whitespace-> "}
     {:#text "sample\ntext - landed the plane and it was sunny.",
       (pprint airplanes)
:at-type "landing",
      :at-weather "sunny"}]}
   {:make "Cessna",
    :year "1933",
    :model {:#text "Skyhawk", :at-color "blue"},
    :owner "jim",
    :action {:#text "text!", :at-type "takeoff", :at-weather "windy"}}
   {:make "whitespace->>",
    :year "1833",
    :model {:#text "puppy", :at-color "blue"},
    :owner "hal",
    :action
    {:#text "more with whitespace->>",
     :at-type "takeoff",
     :at-weather "blowy"}}]}}) 
     
     
;; how do i get rid of the atom? do i _have_ to use core.async? I was hoping to somehow use the `acc` as an accumulator. ?
(def output (atom []))

(defn recur-test[{:keys [acc val md5-list json-key]
                  :or {acc []
                       md5-list []
                       json-key []}
                  :as args}]
  (if-let [new-md5 (md5 (json/generate-string val))]
    (cond
      (map? val) (do
                   (swap! output
                          conj {:md5-list (conj md5-list new-md5)
                                :json-key json-key
                                :val val})
                   (doseq [[k,v] val]
                     (recur-test (merge args
                                        {:md5-list (conj md5-list new-md5)
                                         :json-key (conj json-key k)
                                         :val v}
                                        ))))
      (vector? val) (do
                      #_(printf "V -> %s\n" val)
                      (doseq [v val] (recur-test (assoc args :val v)))
                      )
      ;; if it's anything eles it should be contained in the maps above?
      :else () #_(pprint {:json-key json-key
                          :md5-list md5-list'
                          :val val})
      )))

(recur-test  {:val airplanes} )

(clojure.pprint/print-table @output)