Nuclear detonation
Can be stopped by an often-ignored action,
One which receives little to no attention.
Nuclear elimination,
Can begin,
Once once reaches the realization,
Of the ability of lyricization~
Nuclear detonation and wars, in general, are disastrous. For some, they are a necessary companion to being righteous and patriotic with their nation. To others, they are an unnecessary excuse for an unwillingness to pursue more diplomatic paths of success.
I am not here to say one is wrong or right, but from the perspective of a person who cares for the community, serenity, and at least some sense of harmony for both the self and the other, I think that diplomacy and poetry win over warfare and acrimony.
From the fall of 2017 to late summer/early fall 2018, I studied abroad in Kyoto City, Japan. During my time there my study abroad program took us on a journey to Hiroshima to see the infamous domb that withstood the nuclear bomb's fury. The most popular sign of peace representative of the bombing of Hiroshima is the 1000 origami cranes. Made with splendid colors and in an elegant manner, these cranes are an artistic emblem of peace to the world. Though the cranes have become mainstream throughout the years, as more and more people have come to know of them, their story shows all the more the importance of art in times of pain and torment.
Not only is poetry a form of art, but it need not be written down or be controlled by some tangible tendency. In actuality, poetry, and by extension lyrics, are brought into existence by the voice or gestures of a human being, or even nature in some instances. Just as the passing down of origami lessons from parent to child over the years can lead one person in the line to eventually form origami figures, poetry can be passed down through the ages as well. However, one critical difference is that poetry can be passed down eternally and still be considered to be in its true form. As war stories are told, so are poems, recalling those desperate times. told as well. Sadly poems for peace are often seen as weak because many popular examples of activist poetry come from what is called in American history as those affiliated with 'flower power'. 'Peace and love' was the common slogan and drugs were often intermingled with it. This has lent to poetry for peace being thought of like a breath of air hoping to become a whirlwind of change. Though what often goes unrealized is that poetry, like anthems, often become rallying cries for people to make and affect change in the world. If no voice ever detected war as an issue to a melodic tune, it may not enter the consciousness of people as easily and memorably. As good stories told are unforgettable, so are poetic lyrics. In addition, since they often have a rhyming sequence, they can become a tune to march to, and as memorable as the beat of a heart.
To end, think of tunes such as John Lennon's song "Imagine"; Louie Armstrong's song "What A Wonderful World" and Bob Dylan's Song "Blowin' In the Wind". These songs still resonate with many in the world, and tend to cause one another, to for a second hear the ringing of the bell of peace.
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I sit here in the desert of Nevada, facing a triple strand of barbed wire that stretches to a point to my right and left. There is a quiet here that belies the warning signs strung on the wire every quarter mile, “Danger, Do not Trespass, Violators will be Prosecuted, U.S. Department of Energy“
The yawning valley spreads out before me. I see light brown sand, grey rock, dotted with pale sagebrush and tumbleweed, an occasional stunted, twisted black naked prickly little tree. It draws my eye up to a profile of distant mountain ridges. There is a dust devil out there kicking up a spiral cloud of sand and dead twigs.
I’m sitting here in despair and melancholia, One of my lifelong companions. A feeling of hopelessness pervades my sweaty sagging body.
Between 1951 and 1992 there were 928 known nuclear explosions out there. They ripped this land apart, shifting fissures deep in this earth, blowing craters, incinerating plant and animal alike for tens of miles, scattering poisonous atomic material to the four winds for hundreds of miles, contaminating the glowing sand with death-dealing plutonium-239 that has a half-life of over 24,000 years.
The last day of the 20th Century I marched with hundreds of protestors, each person holding a candle, led by Martin Sheen and a singing tribe of native Shoshone, down a road under Rt 95 to the main gate of the nuclear test site. At the stroke of midnight, we crossed the line at the gate and were arrested in mass for trespassing.
“What good does it do? What good am I doing here, just sitting here alone in the sun? No one sees me. No one would give a damn if they do. What’s the point?” My tongue sticks to the back of my mouth. I think of the sheer physical power of just one of those explosions vaporizing this land and all it’s living things. What I do sitting here can’t save even one lizard from dying on an irradiated rock somewhere out there 20 thousand years from now.
I want to go home, leave this lost land of cratered zeroes.
Another dust devil begins swirling things into the air. It spirals toward me. I close my eyes to the inevitable flying dust. Suddenly a breath of wind moves against my cheek. I think how the God of Genesis created a life by breathing on a lump of clay. The Spirit of God and the breath of the wind. Life-giving breath, separating the quick from the dead. I breathe breath and life. This moment is life. All I have is this moment. I live here, now, on the edge of the enormity of the death before me: each fragile breath a revolutionary act defying that death.
The sage, the deer brush, the dark scrawny trees, they breathe, they grow. Death has not triumphed here. The wind blows, life goes on as it will for as long as there is wind on the earth.
Something makes me recall the story of Abraham bargaining with God for the life of Sodom and Gomorrah. Those cities were doomed not because they harbored homosexuals, but because they consisted of people who would not practice the commandment to exercise hospitality to the stranger. How fearless and foolhardy was Abraham to approach God and say, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked? …Oh, do not let the Lord be angry if I speak just once more. Suppose ten righteous people are found there.” God answered him, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy them.” And the Lord went his way, and Abraham returned to his place.
I speak Abraham’s fawning plea that God spare us from the consequences of this demonic evil we have created. “Would you spare us all for the sake of ten righteous ones?” I breathe into the air, this same pleading question by another fragile mortal long ago.
I hear no reply but my inner anxiety is blown away. I trust it to God, who once said yes and can say yes again. I take the red bandana from my bald head, unfold it and place it in a diamond shape and tie it against the barbed wire. It looks like a mandala.
I jump up with a foolhardy sense of hope. My kerchief bellows out, pulls against the fence, trembles its symbolic witness. I don’t have to convert the world to peace, all I have to do is promise to be one of those ten who breathe love. Its a Holy foolishness that only God could use.
David Moss
530-966-1862
11914 Incline Shaft Rd
Nevada City, Ca. 95959
Perseverance