Aikichi
Kuboyama,
forty years of age
on March 1, 1954.
Chief radio operator
on the Lucky Dragon.
When the nuclear fallout
from the Bravo test
contaminated
your ship
you were not so lucky.
You were the first Japanese victim
to die
from an H-Bomb test.
You prayed to be the last victim,
but it was not
to be.
David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
This poem was read at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 15th annual Sadako Peace Day commemoration on August 6, 2009
I believe the orange leaves should fall I believe that the water in a stream should run I believe fish should swim nothing should be stopped from its purpose
don’t stop flowers from growing nor the lightning from striking
Our purpose is not to fly in heavy metal contraptions or to flatten land for our own selfishness
Our purpose is simple but important Our job is not to kill or destroy
We are here to open up to the world and enjoy its miracles but even more than that, we are here to make peace
This poem was read by Barry Spacks at the Foundation’s Sadako Peace Day commemoration on August 6, 2009
The child Sadako, leukemia victim of Hiroshima, folded some 600 paper cranes in hope of health in the year before she died.
Tell the story; the heart from horrors hardens like ice; pray that words may melt to tears the heart. Sadako’s friends completed the thousand cranes
to bear away Sadako’s poisons. Imagine those stumbling, ardent fingers, fingers folding cranes of hope. Tell the story again and again.
The children raised a monument to Sadako, bomb-sickened child of war. Her image there holds a golden crane in triumph over mindless death.
We weep for Sadako, weep for her friends, until all blasted flesh is ours, for still comes news of rage and war, still comes hope in the folding of cranes.
Tell the story, tell the story: salt tears, my friends, must make a start. Fold the cranes, the thousand cranes meaning Never again. Never again.
| Children, this is the way you will be saved from a nuclear attack. At the sound of the bell you will scramble as fast as you can under your desk and into a kneeling position facing downward toward the floor with your head resting on your arms. You will keep your eyes squeezed tightly closed, not opening them or looking up until you hear me say “All clear.”This is the way you will be saved from shards of glass and other objects traveling at speeds of hundreds of miles per hour. And from the flash of white light that could melt your eyeballs. And from the explosion that could scramble your brains and the rest of your organs. And this is the way you will be saved from the fire that may incinerate you, leaving you all shriveled, charred and lifeless. This is not what we want for our children.
And this is the way you will be saved from the radiation that will cause your gums to bleed, your hair to fall out, leukemia to form in your blood, and lead to either a slow and painful death or to a more rapid and painful death. Pay close attention to the directions so that you will get it right the first time. |
David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). Please send comments to him at “dkrieger@napf.org”.
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From where does this good name arise that we are content to sacrifice and value war above that we love far more? Is it tales of glory and yet bolder lies wrapped in flags and mythic warrior lore that lead our children off to war? If war is the best we can devise to give meaning to our lives and touch our core, are we not then truly lost? Would that we could recognize that this false good name of futile war comes with a fierce debilitating cost. Does the wearisome brutality of war bring us comfort, seem a cure? In such a world can love endure? Pity that we live with war, pity that we send our children off to die among the rats, among the flies. For rippling flags and lowly lies we hide the truth of what’s in store, preserving the good name of war. |
David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org), and a leader in the global effort to abolish nuclear weapons.
“My son died for nothing….” — Cindy Sheehan
One brave mother, whose son died in war, had a burning question for the President.
“What,” she asked, “was the noble cause my son died for?”
While the mother waited for an answer, the President took naps.
While she wilted in the harsh Texas sun, the President sped by in his caravan.
While she felt the aching pain of her son’s death, the President went biking with Lance Armstrong.
While the President enjoyed yet another war-time vacation, more mothers’ sons died in war.
And more mothers began to ask, “What is the noble cause our children are dying for?”
The President, who saves his charm for those in power, could only say, “I’ve got a life to live….”
And so he does, while more sons and daughters are sacrificed to the god of war,
and their grieving mothers await an answer.
So you wanted to be a doctor?
It was not likely that your dreams would have come true anyway.
We didn’t intend for our bombs to find you.
They are smart bombs, but they didn’t know that you wanted to be a doctor.
They didn’t know anything about your dreams and they know nothing of love.
They only know how to find their targets and explode in fulfillment.
We call them smart, but they cannot be trusted with dreams.
After all, they are only gray metal casings with violent hearts.
They do only what they were created to do.
It isn’t their fault that they found you.
Perhaps you were not meant to be a doctor.