While You Slept
By Grace Reid, Jul 6, 2005
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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