Good Weapons Make Good Neighbors

We must eliminate nuclear weapons before they eliminate us.

The sentiments of the Japanese people are clear on this matter. No country has suffered as Japan has from weapons of mass destruction. And no where are people as united in the conviction that nuclear weapons must never be used again.

This week marks the 63rd anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima (August 6) and Nagasaki (August 9) by the United States. The Prime Minister of Japan, Yasuo Fukuda, and Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon have gone Hiroshima to take part in the annual ceremony of remembrance.

This poem is my small effort in memory of the more than 200,000 civilians who died in the attacks. I write it in hopes that more of us outside Japan will become motivated to take a stand and work for a world free of nuclear weapons.

Good Weapons Make Good Neighbors
(after Robert Frost's "Mending Wall.)"

Something there is that doesn't love the Bomb,
That flies six warheads across the country,
Mounted by mistake on a bomber's wings,
Forgotten, as we forget them daily,
Choosing not to know, being practical.

The threat of first strike is another thing:
In Japan, daily life beyond repair:
Where the blast, heat, wind and radiation
Killed as nothing before -- quick and slow.
We stopped a greater wrong, we said.
Defensive, this killing of civilians,
This razing of homes and schools and playgrounds.

Yet we shout a warning: Never again,
And declare from the mountaintop the grave
Outline of our nuclear strategy --
Safety first: No one else must get the Bomb --
We will go to war to stop it, even
Launch our own - better us as destroyers
Than a nation with no experience.

History is our witness: Be afraid:
We can deter anyone but ourselves.

We walk this line with our global neighbors
And build this broad two-faced wall between us
The better to avoid the obvious:
How can any good come of mass killing.

Before I kept the Bomb I'd ask to know
What I was destroying and what protecting,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love the Bomb
That wants it broken down and buried deep.

I see our new enemy (or friend) proud,
Bringing his Bombs grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He does it to claim his independence,
But follows footsteps worn in a circle.

He says: Good weapons make good neighbors.
And a phrase that from us was common sense
Becomes a threat from the lips of another.

We listen and feel our marrow contract.

Something there is that doesn't love the Bomb
That wants it broken down and buried deep.

-- Steven Crandell

The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation holds a Sadako Peace Day every year. We remember the victims of the atomic attacks including Sadako Sasaki, the 12 year-old girl who died of leukemia after the Hiroshima bombing and became an international symbol of peace. Those who wish may send an e-mail message or prayer of peace in memory of Sadako here: http://www.wagingpeace.org/menu/programs/public-events/sadako-peace-day/2008/sadako_be_a_messenger.htm We will list the messages on our website and choose a selection to read at our Peace Day ceremony in Santa Barbara, California.

The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is an educational charity that seeks a new US nuclear weapons policy. The Foundation is gathering one million signatures in a public education campaign, US Leadership for a Nuclear Weapons-Free World -- An Appeal to the Next President of the United States. The text of the Appeal sets out seven prudent steps -- such as de-alerting nuclear weapons -- that would make the world safer. The names will be delivered to the White House on Inauguration Day January 20, 2009.

People can read the US Leadership Appeal and sign on at www.wagingpeace.org/appeal.