Earth Day 2017
POETRY FORMAT, 1 May 2017
David Krieger – TRANSCEND Media Service
Be advised: this poem may be interrupted
by a nuclear war.
Home is a blue-green planet,
a pale blue dot in a vast universe,
a water planet hurtling through space
with its precious cargo, life.
If it comes, it is likely to be a short
but cataclysmic nuclear war.
Home has been a place not too hot
and not too cold, a place just right
for life to flourish.
Lately, though, we’ve caused our home
to heat up and the seas to rise.
In a nuclear war, it is said
that the living will envy the dead.
On this day of celebration
of our only planet, we are in danger
of being slowly boiled or quickly fried
or otherwise being made inoperable.
We have still not learned to share
with each other, or to love each other
and our home. We must try harder.
Be advised: Earth, even life itself,
will survive without us.
It is for ourselves that we must change
our ways.
_________________________________________
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.
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 1 May 2017.
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