Right now I find myself angry. I am angry with the world. I am pissed off above my usual limit. I can’t take it anymore. I had it. I am furious! Have I mentioned that I am angry?
Tag: <span>war</span>
…
In Yugoslavia, on a beautiful coast
right when the Civil War started
mothers held their children tight.
I saw fear in the women’s eyes.
1979, three months before I graduated from the Gymnasium, I sat in our classroom in boarding school during our daily homework time and started writing an essay that would cause some controversy between the nuns and our worldly teachers. I wrote about the Middle East conflict. Some thought I was wrong, others thought I was bold, but all agreed I was too young to understand.
Down with a cold, but not COVID, I seem to start the New Year the same way I did last year, coughing my head off, but that’s not true. Last year in January there was peace in my mind, then in February Russia invaded Ukraine. Last year I could afford chicken, and now it’s almost a luxury item.
A friend in Germany sent me the link to a song, and I would like to share it with all my blogging friends. The lyrics are in German, sung by many famous European artists who all decided to not ask for any kind of pay or reimbursement to be able to participate in this powerful arrangement.
Peace for me, it’s the desire to live a life free from war and free from life-threatening physical violence. In addition, peace for me also means not experiencing oppression, social inequality, and other structural violence. Living in peace means the absence of fear, doubt, and uncertainty.
A last-minute call from the township we live in. They asked me to sew banners. People had ordered them to honor their loved ones who served in the armed forces of the United States. The banners will be displayed on street lamps from Memorial Day through Veterans Day to both, celebrate, and remind the community of their dedication to our country.
What’s there to sew on a banner? I wondered.
A voice from the dark called out,
“The poets must give us
imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar
imagination of disaster. Peace, not only
the absence of war.”
You’re standing with a “No war” sign as if indulging
the inevitable: this war can’t be stopped,
like bright arterial blood from an open wound
it flows till it kills,
Far in the Champagne in midsummer green
where poppy bloom between grave crosses
the grasses whisper and sway gently
in the wind, that gently sweeps over the graveyard