Guest Editorials
While You Slept
I travelled to Persia, to Alexandria, and
to the granite shores of home
I wept with an old love and buried a child
while you slept
The earth was red with Wyoming clay, into it salt mothers
tears
And the husband like stone and him with the whiskey for
courage
For me the clay and a year of dirt and solitude
A year
with God and the grave and planting trees in the wilderness.
A year with
wolves and bears and coyotes and rattlesnakes.
A year with moose and elk and
skunks and prairie dogs.
A year of mice woodchucks, rabbits and
slugs.
Seed packets, empty whiskey bottles, and plans of medieval
gardens.
And not a human soul. Not a living soul. Not a whisper or a
word.
Just the occasional roar of a distant tractor.
While you
slept the war in Iraq was held in a peace fire.
For eight hours there was not
a bomb or a death.
For eight hours there was not a crime committed.
And
the plowshares made of all the armaments beaten, even they were still;
While
the workers rested in fragrant fields; while you slept.
(Illustration:
Vincent Van Gogh: "Rest From Work" After Millet 1889-1890)
July 6, 2005;
16:57 GMT
Dear Readers: Yes, I wrote this and it is all the true story
and he did find it when he woke up and he was delighted! I am more interested
these days in creating peace than in fighting those who created this war and
want it to continue. Exit strategy is most important... but creating peace is
vast.... it is about healing.... and that's where I am going. Because my fight
against the war in Iraq was a war, when it was not a battle, and I was becoming
a used up pawn in the US resistance movement. Now I am interested in strategies
that create peace through reconciliation.... I'm going off to study peace,
reconciliation and healing.
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