Jamail Center for Legal Research
Tarlton Law Library

An Improbable Garden

Where I go, sad city, you go with me.
You are not worldly like Paris or Rome, 
but neither am I. 
You are not a city of snow-capped peaks, 
nor one with the calm sea wrapped around you.
These wonders do not change the soul.
You are not New York, nor Delhi, nor Rio
with their milling throngs and excitement.
Such noise and light and busy-ness 
are too ephemeral for you.

Your heritage is honorable.  That counts
for something.  After your tragedy
you showed the depth of your spirit. 
You clawed your own earth
until the plants slowly came back.
You are a city built on the ashes of war, 
a city where a flower is still a miracle.
You are a city with the courage 
to return from the dead.
Your people bow deeply and smile 
their sorrowful smiles. 

Hiroshima, sad city, I give you
the intensity of my solitude.
I give you the drum beat of my heart.
I carry you with me in the hope 
that from your spirit a better world 
may one day sprout and blossom.
I give you the salt of my tears
to mix with your grief and promise.
Hiroshima, you are an improbable garden
and I, an even more improbable gardener.

Worse Than The War

Worse than the war, the endless, senseless war
Worse than the lies leading to the war

Worse than the countless deaths and injuries
Worse than hiding the coffins and not attending funerals

Worse than the flouting of international law
Worse than the torture at Abu Ghraib prison

Worse than the corruption of young soldiers
Worse than undermining our collective sense of decency

Worse than the arrogance, smugness and swagger
Worse than our loss of credibility in the world
Worse than the loss of our liberties

Worse than learning nothing from the past
Worse than destroying the future
Worse than the incredible stupidity of it all

Worse than all of these
As if they were not enough for one war or country or lifetime
Is the silence, the resounding silence, of good Americans.

David Krieger is a founder of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and has served as President of the Foundation since 1982. Under his leadership the Foundation has initiated innovative projects for building peace, strengthening international law and abolishing nuclear weapons. Krieger has lectured throughout the United States, Europe and Asia on peace, security, nuclear weapons, and international law and has authored numerous books on peace and the nuclear age, including a book of poetry, The Poetry of Peace (Capra Press, 2003).

Krieger is Deputy Chair of the International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility (Germany); a member of the Committee of 100 for Tibet; and a member of the International Steering Committee of the Middle Powers Initiative. He is also a founder and a member of the Global Council of Abolition 2000, a global network of over 2000 organizations and municipalities committed to the elimination of nuclear weapons. He serves on the Advisory Council of Free the Children International (Toronto), Global Resource Action Center for the Environment (New York), the International Council of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide (Israel), the International Institute for Peace (Vienna), the Peace Resources Cooperative (Japan), the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research (Sweden), Promoting Enduring Peace (New York), and the War and Peace Foundation (New York). He also serves as a board member of the Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy (New York). 

In his early career he was an Assistant Professor at the University of Hawaii and at San Francisco State University. He worked at the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions on issues of international law and ocean governance, and at the Foundation for Reshaping the International Order (RIO Foundation) in the Netherlands, on the effects of dual purpose technologies on disarmament, development and the environment.

Krieger is a graduate of Occidental College. He holds an M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in political science from the University of Hawaii and received his J.D. from the Santa Barbara College of Law. He is married and has three children. 

David Krieger:  "An Improbable Garden" and "Worse than the War" appear in David Kreiger's Today Is Not a Good Day for War (Capra Press, 2005).