for Ali Ismail Abbas
So you wanted to be a doctor?
It was not likely that your dreams
would have come true anyway.
We didn’t intend for our bombs to find you.
They are smart bombs, but they didn’t know
that you wanted to be a doctor.
They didn’t know anything about you
and they know nothing of love.
They cannot be trusted with dreams.
They only know how to find their targets
and explode in fulfillment.
They are gray metal casings with violent hearts,
doing only what they were created to do.
It isn’t their fault that they found you.
Perhaps you were not meant to be a doctor.
David Krieger
Dr. David Krieger is a leader in the global movement to abolish nuclear weapons and build a more peaceful world. He is a founder of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and has served as president of the Foundation since 1982. Amongst several of his wide-spanning leadership endeavours 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. He has also written hundreds of articles and book chapters. He is a recipient of several awards and honours, including the OMNI Center for Peace, Justice and Ecology Peace Writing Award for Poetry (2010).