A Tree for the Victims
POETRY FORMAT, 13 Jun 2016
David Krieger | Global Poetry – TRANSCEND Media Service
Hiroshima Tree at Tavistock Square, London. Photo © Global Poetry.
As far away as London, there is a solid tree,
a stately tree, I would say, casting a broad shadow
on a cool green lawn.
A plaque at the base of the tree tells passers-by
that the tree was planted by the worshipful Mayor
of Camden, Councillor Mrs. Millie Miller,
on August 6, 1967.
It was twenty-two years after the new
U.S. bomb destroyed Hiroshima, killing ordinary people –
men, women and children – by blast, fire and radiation.
Some victims were incinerated, leaving only shadows.
How can a single tree, no matter how solid, bear
the weight of such memory?
Now, many years later, picnickers laugh and eat
their lunches in the shade of the tree.
_______________________________________
David Krieger is founder and president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment. Amongst several of his wide-spanning leadership endeavors in global peacebuilding, he is a founder and a member of the Global Council of Abolition 2000, councilor on the World Future Council, and is the chair of the Executive Committee of the International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility. Dr. Krieger is the author of many books and studies of peace in the Nuclear Age. He has written or edited more than 20 books and hundreds of articles and book chapters. He is a recipient of several awards and honors, including the OMNI Center for Peace, Justice and Ecology Peace Writing Award for Poetry (2010).He has a new collection of poems entitled Wake Up. For more visit the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation website: www.wagingpeace.org.
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