- Hello? Hello? Oh. Yeah. I think I'm ready. Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello. Hello. All right. All right.
- Here we are. This is the beginning of Peace Week. And I am honored to be here. And I'm honored to be
- representing Peace Week in the Poorhouse.
- And we are having a poetry reading. And right now, I would like to start out by introducing Thomas Tukarski.
- And he is right here. Thank you all for coming tonight to talk about peace.
- My first poem is actually about war, but it's a different kind of war. It's a kind of war that I could
- support. About five years ago, Patricia Coleman put out a call for people to write poems about biscuits.
- And I wrote this poem at that time. It's called Biscuit Wars. You know biscuits, those little wafers
- that we have for breakfast? Biscuit Wars. What if bullets were biscuits shot from pastry guns? If land
- mines were unbaked dough that exploded,
- into warm, moist biscuits. What if snipers hidden in trees and tall buildings threw down biscuits on
- the unsuspecting enemy? Wouldn't that be a blow for peace? Biscuit bombs would be such a surprise as
- they bounced off soldiers' helmets. Parents would sigh with relief. Their children were finally out
- of harm's way. Wouldn't it be a better kind of war if medals for bravery were homemade biscuits
- of various shapes and colors filled with jam or wildflower honey. If giant statues of the biscuit were
- erected in plazas and public squares around the world, biscuit generals would be welcomed with open
- arms instead of deadly arms. Instead of guns and tanks, if we sold tons of ready-mixed biscuits to needy
- countries and rebel groups, wouldn't hostilities decrease?
- Suppose some rogue dictator got out of hand, couldn't noble nations of biscuit lovers everywhere, sit
- him down over a homey meal of biscuits and gravy, and explain in no uncertain terms, stop this nonsense,
- or you will eat nothing for the rest of your life but cold, freeze-dried, shrink-wrapped spam. That
- horrific thought would certainly cause him to repent.
- I believe biscuits could easily win the Nobel Peace Prize. For peace and welfare of all peoples, wouldn't
- frequent outbreaks of steaming neighborly biscuits made with baking powder have a more nurturing effect
- than the heartburn of metallic gunpowder wars? Among the most peaceful creatures on the earth are trees.
- And they make life possible and unfortunately in many parts of the world we are at war with trees. We
- must learn to make peace with trees. And this poem is my small bow to these peaceful creatures. It's
- called Merging. A huge oak tree, lifeless in January, exposing massive trunk and thick spreading limbs
- that thin to the smallest twigs
- to the finest tips that merge with the vastly blue sky. Beneath the tree is a scattering of small birds,
- weak winter voices and lean saplings. What is a tree but the roots of the sky and the fingers of the
- earth quietly holding the world together? War brings out many kinds of heroes, violent and nonviolent.
- This poem is based on a true story and a real person by the name of Smilovic. Perhaps you've heard of
- him. The event occurred during the Bosnian War, and it is about a different kind of hero. It's called
- a war story. Smilovic played the cello in a bomb crater for 22 days, one day for each person killed
- by the blast. Then he played among the ruins of Sarajevo
- to the tears and stares of all the war's victims until the cynics who could not bear his music of shame
- threw him out. Smilovich was connected to a different sky than URI. He played his music with eternal
- pain and hope. Though the dead were not revived and the killing continued, patiently from the tomb of
- war rose a song of resurrection, the persistent memory of peace.
- And then finally, if we are to have peace within ourselves, among ourselves, and peace with the earth,
- we must begin to think in different ways than the way we think now. And the natural world has much to
- teach us. I began the search for peace within myself by asking questions. This poem is called Another
- Way. If you were immured in melancholy,
- And I gave you a field of purple asters in autumn, each mauve disc encircling a bright yellow center
- like the light of morning, a field of a thousand mornings. Would you take them with you into winter?
- When the press of hours pushed like hairy crowds at your back and I showed you to a wide shore where
- blue waves curled in line after line, scrambling and swirling over boulders,
- pulling back to reform fluently, and I offered this rhythm as my gift of time. Would you call me impractical?
- If you felt as empty as a line sketched on the crumpled scrap of paper, I told you of an old field where
- seed-ranked growth of mazy colors woven with webs and songs overflowed, and I said that you could walk
- in this fullness and swell like a chrysalis.
- Would you dismiss me with incredulous eyes? I know an old apple tree twisting and gnarled that bears
- sparse fruit. If I made you a seat beneath its thick and graceful limbs to nourish you with its age,
- would you smile but think me foolish? If you were subdued by grief and I asked you to come with me where
- waves rise and break like imagination,
- Could you sit silent remembering until your sadness became the cry of seabirds? And if you grew haughty
- and I asked you to leave your cities of glittering props and stay alone in a shadowless forest night,
- could you wait there as the trees for the splintered light of morning? Thank you and go in peace.
- penetrating to all of us and words to think about. And our next speaker is Thomas DeKarste. No. Oh,
- Ray Zidonic. Yeah, I'm sorry. Sorry, Ray. Hi, I'm Ray Zidonic.
- The first poem that I'm going to read is entitled A Nortista, and it's dedicated to Sister Dorothy Stang.
- Dorothy Stang was an American nun who was an advocate for the poor and for the environment in the Para
- state of Brazil. And a couple of years ago, she was killed by the thugs hired by rich landowners down there
- are the same ones who are decimating the rainforests even as we speak. I noticed in the latest news
- that they've arrested several people and they've gone to prison, but the ones who are behind it, the
- higher ups are the ones that are getting released on appeals and so forth. And the people, the lower
- soldiers are the ones who are still in prison. So justice is not fully done yet. Al Nortista.
- Above the kingdoms of mud, the white bird soars. These peasants have trudged 20 miles under a gunpowder
- sky. Lean men in rags, girls with ancient eyes carrying hopeless children bundled in dreams. Their patience,
- their relentless faith, the deepest of mysteries. Strangers with guns,
- horrors of greed and waste and violence, the spoilers who can never stop the beauty that surrounds them
- like the rush of a great river, the holiness that rises from the earth itself like the breath of God.
- Their souls will be left to wither in the equatorial sun, just spoiled fruit.
- on a lighter note. Small Pleasures. The small pleasures, a dry, quiet place to sleep and read, access
- to trees and water, food and laughter, the open air, gentle words, time. At Cedar Creek Farm,
- We took a walk at sundown through bare trees, across frozen ground, down to the creek, cold and hard
- as a diamond. We talked of peace, glad we'd remembered gloves. Later at the wood stove, we settled in
- to watch the sky redden through the western wall. As the dog fell asleep and we lapsed into a mutual
- silence, I thought,
- Let the hope begin right here. Oh, brother, subtitle Pacific Political Polemic. In whose name, friend,
- does the war machine operate? In your name, America, the teacher from Topeka, the realtor from Poughkeepsie,
- the retired steel worker from Youngstown, the disabled veteran from Seattle,
- In your name, Congress has exposed its war chest, the homeless grandmother in Oakland, the CEO vacationing
- in Aruba. All of us load the cartridges into our bank accounts, launch the reconnaissance drones with
- our investment portfolios. We point the rifles with our indifference, reboot the weapons systems with
- our capacity to deny. In our silence, we languish.
- and self-deception we linger. And when all else fails, we just gasp up the car and go. Vox populi. It
- is the definition of wonder that we are here on this crooked road. Here the journeyman of truth must
- now trace out the elusive outlines of peace.
- After all, the blade is a weapon to the soldier, but a tool to the surgeon. In the end, we all share
- the same breath, that primal breath that is the mother of time. And my last poem, Martin Luther King
- Day, 2008. Nina Simone sang, the king of love is dead.
- Her words still caress the walls of empty rooms in Harlem. Hers is the voice of the eternal outsider,
- forever on the threshold but never crossing. The mountaintop speech, the last he would ever make, traveling
- at the speed of hope to the end of the known universe, like a burning star growing younger, ever younger.
- until it is born. Thank you. Wow. Our next poet is Patricia Siegel.
- Good evening. I had planned on reading a story from the Tree of Peace, and instead I pulled an excerpt
- from it that I'd like to read first. Dagana Wita, also known as Hiawatha, spoke long ago of the great
- lie that has become rooted in the hearts and consciousness of the world's peoples. He called the lie
- the Tree of War,
- Asking the people to eradicate the habits of the tree of war by releasing the habits of warfare and
- violence from ourselves and all nations, by replacing the lie with the truth of love. Working together,
- we have the power to plant ideas and actions to seed and create a loving, sustainable world. From a
- sacred people, we all came.
- And we all came from a sacred people, even if we have forgotten the knowledge of our soul stories drawn
- as thin starlight strides, it is all timeless inner knowing. Within we hold the only key anchored upon
- ancestral and genetic memories, swimming invisible and silent, twining perfect threads that bind one
- generation into the next.
- We are all partners of unspoken desire, ever to search creation cradling shadow dreams. We are manifest
- seeds of possibilities, capable of new snow wholeness. We travel through what we call living, mostly
- unaware and untouched by our true selves, bypassing memories of truth that ache our dreams.
- and weigh our hearts with desires, feeling heavy like water, washing strong like black syrup sap, sweet
- and sticky. Try to remember inner streams hidden like shadow rivers coursing deep within our earthly
- bodies, ever flowing us toward opportunities for sacred knowing.
- Turn hidden corners with conscious understanding. Place the taste of stars upon our skins. Let mindfulness
- pull on our tongues. From a sacred people, we all came. Always each of us dancing toward the breath
- from whence we came.
- Through timeless sacred sources where once we knew the knowledge of riding light, memories of wholeness
- cut through shadow shroud, knowingness of inseparable being, let each determine inner sense of peace,
- inner sense of being, of love flowering open like a rose or lotus to the radiant self source emerge.
- Say it like a mantra or we might yet find our way. Written after watching a PBS nature documentary about
- a life study of humans through the observation of baboons. In some remaining ancient languages where
- no word for war exists, like the disappearing Nahuatl, where the closest they get to addressing the
- heinous violence of
- human against life is through the word pakelistili, which translates to no war. I like to use it like
- a mantra, pakelistili, pakelistili, pakelistili. Sometimes I say it in rounds of seven as I move through
- the day. It brings my attentive mind back to sweet, lilting sounds of hope. The way pakelistili rolls
- easily across my tongue,
- Consider it like a rare, rediscovered fruit, Pakalistili, blossoming just for this moment,
- the next day, next year, beyond into the next seven generations, and farther still, Pakalistili.
- When aggressive male baboons who tortured and attacked females, less aggressive males and children died
- out after greedily consuming diseased and poisoned foods, leaving none for the other tribal members,
- they left behind a gentler, transformed community of nurturing females and males to assume leadership,
- pakalistili. Immediately, this skittish
- culture of violent uncertainty grew into a thriving, playfully content culture and community where,
- even as decades have passed, these baboons still do not allow violent, dominating males or females to
- become established within their community of supportive accord. Remember, this is a true story, Pakalistili.
- I recall another true story, that of the hundredth monkey. There are others among us who recall it too.
- Like a mantra, Pakalistili means we find a way to know war on ourselves, our home earth and co-inhabitants.
- Pakalistili, Pakalistili, Pakalistili. A dreamer I am. With all who imagine the possibility of no war,
- Now and for what I hope we may dance as a real tomorrow, Pakalistili. In my dreams, I see chrysalis
- around us. We might yet find our way collectively toward peace as we open to heart meaning of the Nahuatl
- word, Pakalistili. Thank you.
- an overwhelming thing for me to do because every single person that comes up here and speaks just takes
- me to another place. And now I would like to introduce Elizabeth Hoover and Mitch Rice will be doing
- the music.
- to thank the organizers for putting this together and also for inviting me to read. And when I was invited
- to read, I started looking through all of my poetry. And I realized that I don't really have anything
- that I would characterize as peace poetry. I have tons of anti-war poems. But it seems that none of
- them would be characterized as peace poetry. And at first, I was really disappointed in myself. But
- I think it attests to the fact that
- Our society has become so militarized, and the military is so entrenched in our understanding that it's
- nearly impossible to imagine what peace would mean. This will expose my youth, but I was in eighth grade
- during Operation Desert Storm, and we've been bombing Iraq on and off ever since. So it's almost impossible
- for me to imagine what the world would be like. So I think it's really important for us to come together
- and try to imagine it.
- I'm going to lead off. This is called the altar. And it seems to me that one of the ways that we convince
- people to participate in war is to create myths about what being in war does to you, and it makes you
- heroic and it makes you glorious. And it seems like these myths have been going on for millennium. This
- is based on the Odyssey, the final episode in the Odyssey. The Altar. Odysseus's final task was to walk
- into the bronze wheat and ore nested next to his shoulder mound as people came from their houses like
- schools of curious minnows. Walk.
- until a farmer who never knew the surprise of salt asked if he was carrying a winnowing fan. There he
- was to stop, plant the ore, and erect an altar to the hoary god who had dogged him, clawing his men
- one by one from his ship to helix, unwept in the current. The ore stuck from the altar like the arm
- of a drowning man,
- as he walked lighter back home to his newly forged soldier son and his wife's weaving arms, while the
- altar grew dreams of the ocean that splashed over the lintels, sprinkling the sun's who woke, crunching
- the salt foam that tipped the crests of their desire to follow the astringent path the stranger left
- in the air and make the air stranger there.
- They journeyed through forest felled for ships, toward the flickering maws of smelting ovens, the bright
- spin of shields, the netted hull of blades. Such willing fodder, following the promise of adventure,
- the promise that their churning needs would be sated, husks blown away on the sea as they stand, golden
- at the prow, shearing through the blue to glory.
- This piece is called Helen's Face. Contrary to popular belief, Helen's Face did not launch 1,000 ships.
- It, in fact, launched 1,186 ships. And we know this because the poet of the Iliad cataloged each one,
- naming its home cove. Homer spends 300 verses
- giving each harbor a lineage, noting how each tree shuddered into the shipmaker's yard. Even the fishing
- villages that contributed only one ship never to return are mentioned. After all, they too had to marshal
- an entire forest, leave themselves surrounded by stumps, their hills blank as those fields in Iowa dotted
- with hangars
- where women in floppy shower caps pat the belly of the bomb before cross-hatching it with chalk, hoisting
- it on a chain, and sailing it across the room where straw-lined boxes weight like mangers. Didn't that
- little cue ball Eisenhower say something about this, about how much each weapon cost in terms of wheat?
- No matter, they are weighed out in vague tonnage
- somewhere in the Midwest, in places that look oddly familiar when we drive by. But who could name them?
- Who remembers their names if we ever even knew them? We have trees and faces in spades. Thank you. I
- just want to thank Elizabeth for bringing out the fact that with peace, there is also war.
- There is an epic we cannot get away from. Thank you for bringing it into perspective for us. And our
- next poet.
- As we all know, many songs are poems, and quite a few poems are songs. And I'm going to bring the two
- together. This one is by Ewan McCall, well-known folk singer of Scotland, songwriter, singer-songwriter.
- And some of you should know it, so sing along if you feel like it.
- I just dreamed, I never dreamed before. I dreamed the world had all agreed to put an end to war. I dreamed
- I saw this mighty realm was filled with women and men. The paper that they were signing said they'd
- never fight again.
- paper was all signed and a million copies were made lay all joined hands they bowed their heads thankful
- prayers were said while the people in the streets people were dancing
- So the next one up is by Buffy Sinkferee. I once had the pleasure of meeting.
- This is a really great song of hers. If I can find the right harmonica, I don't even know that I need
- it. It's got a lot of words in it. If you know them, sing along. If not, listen, they're pretty doggone good.
- He's five foot two and six feet four. He fights with missiles and with spears. He's all a 31. He's only
- 17. Been a soldier for a thousand years. He's a Catholic and a Hindu, an atheist, a Jain, a Buddhist
- and a Baptist and a Jew.
- Now he knows he mustn't kill But he knows he always will Kill you for me, me for you He's fighting for
- the Russians He's fighting for Japan Fighting for the U.S. of A He's fighting for Brazil He's fighting
- for Japan He thinks we'll put an end to war this way
- Universal soldier he really is to blame For his orders come from far away no more They come from him
- and you and me People can't just see This is not the way to put an end to war
- Do I have time for one more or should I go into the poets next? Okay. One last one, a little bit of
- a sing along. This one is by Anonymous. And that anonymous person wrote this with other anonymous persons.
- And you all sing with the chorus, I hope.
- I'm gonna lay down my sword and shield Down by the riverside Wave down the riverside Down by the riverside
- I'm gonna lay down my sword and shield Down by the riverside Study war no more I ain't gonna study war
- no more Ain't gonna study war no more
- Ain't gonna study war Gonna study war no more Ain't gonna study war no more Ain't gonna study war no
- more Ain't gonna study that war no more Take a way down the atom bomb Down by the riverside Down by
- the riverside Down by the riverside And don't lay down that atom bomb
- Down by the riverside, study war no more. I ain't gonna study war no more. Ain't gonna study war no
- more. Ain't gonna study war. Ain't gonna study war no more. I ain't gonna study war no more. Ain't gonna
- study war no more. Ain't gonna study that war no more.
- I say we shake hands all around the world Down by the riverside Down by the riverside Down by the riverside
- And we'll shake hands all around the world Down by the riverside And we'll study war no more I ain't
- gonna study war no more Ain't gonna study war no more Ain't gonna study war
- I ain't no 31 no more I ain't no 31 no more I ain't no 31 no more I ain't no 31 no more I ain't no 31
- no more I ain't no 31 no more I ain't no 31 no more I ain't no 31 no more
- Down by the riverside Study war no more I ain't gonna study war no more Ain't gonna study war no more
- Ain't gonna study war Ain't gonna study war no more I ain't gonna study war no more Ain't gonna study
- war no more Ain't gonna study war
- Thank you. Thank you, Mitch Rice. That was awesome. And we needed it. We needed a little uplifting.
- And now we have Joya Duds. Yeah, I know. You're welcome. Sometimes I'm a Heimer dad. Sometimes I'm a dad.
- Sometimes I'm just Julia. Just Julia. I'll start out with solemn and move toward tender. I think that's
- a direction to go. In the sand. You've watched the news footage bootlegged from the cockpit. 40 or so
- insurgents. No, humans.
- blown up from above, left below a pockmark in the beige desert, shadowed by metal wings. Dude, says
- the boy at ground control to the boy who pushed the button. So like my son, thumb pressing the controls
- of the game he networks into, earpiece and microphone, ignoring the insurgent little brothers in his
- background, his focus shrinking them to static
- eddying specks behind him as he flies into an imagined future. You are solemn, integrating into your
- day this newscast glimpse of thus it has ever been. Me, I am mother to one or to all of those boys,
- all of them lost. And like all mothers ever, thus ever on the ground, foreign and familiar in their black,
- mouth open and shouting at the sky, another language dust on the tongue, sand in the teeth, no holding
- here, hands scrabbling the unkind air, my black open mouth sounding a sound longing to be forgotten
- that leaves no mark behind, no track or trail, a sound that we all finally must utter and understand.
- Chogim Chunpa says that,
- The spiritual warrior walks around with a tenderness so deep that the tears are right at the brim of
- our eyes. I think loving life does that for us. The wing is hollow bone. Here in heaven, bird flight
- describes the turn of my head, the lift of coffee cup to mouth,
- ink on a page. Here, right here in heaven, breeze catches the chimes eye and the two fall in love. In
- the way of those who have loved before, tentatively with meaning. Here in this small heaven, dew and
- dirt and the exultant grief of peony beckon skin towards shiver.
- If I wade into this tide of vine and leaf, the undertow of honeysuckles swoons into the swell of wild
- rose, their lips of silk tonguing sugar's first breath into mine, here in today's only heaven, the flitter
- of pulse thoughtlessly lifts its wing as if it always will.
- If the dead could speak, do you think they could warn us off our summaries, the grandeur and delusion
- of putting it all together? The whetstone of history here milling our present sharpens us to grieve
- through or laugh, whichever the moment calls for.
- Like how breaking open that black sunflower seed is all this chickadee is about. That is what it means.
- How the stream means bank and watercress, oxygen, fish and frog, rain, lake, ocean. How it means blood.
- And how blood always means change. And change means death. How death means a seed, a chickadee, a stream.
- Yes, they whisper lovingly. Nothing but lovingly. Something like that.
- How to build an ark. Stop counting. Empty all vessels. Do not sharpen what cuts. Can we attend to others
- so that we may forget mere politeness? Let the wind of noise die down. Let the light of action play out.
- Breathe in what is unbelievable, that which seems most obvious. Heartbeat and bread, firelight, the
- beating of night upon leaf. Like the past, it is only in the face of perishing we find a way to float.
- Unlike the past, lumber is not needed.
- and the timing uncertain. Meanwhile, whenever possible, discover sky and laugh. Practice. Practice floating.
- And thank you, Julia Heimer-Datz. That was riveting. Thank you.
- And our next speaker is David Kepfer. I'm glad we had such strong and hopeful poetry.
- I am guilty of writing anti-war poetry, perhaps more than peace poetry. I would only say that naming
- the unacceptable is itself an act of hope. Broken interrogations. I still do not know whether I did
- what you will always know was done to you.
- Did I hold a dog to your terrified nakedness or perch you on a box, your outstretched arms wired to
- the current of fear? Did I pile your bodies in a pyramid of shame and photograph you as Pharaoh's phallic
- souvenir? Did I bar you from the home
- you dare not return to because I dare not leave. Tell me what I have done. I beg you as you begged me.
- Tell me what I can do. Now there is nothing I can do to make you forget that my people never remember.
- Or if my plea for forgiveness is a new twist of torture, then let me thirst in the dryness of your memories
- until you reach the waters of my oblivion. The Burial of the Landless. This is about Brazil like an
- earlier poem.
- this evening. It floats to light between the glassy sky and the cracked earth's glare down a rolling
- road to nowhere. They walk against the light, burden resting like a bird, a lighting on the father's
- shoulder. His fingers web spread
- like the arch of a column under the box that is his child. The mother carries nothing toward the earth
- that offers nothing but a home for her dead. Easter, the island.
- Easter falls autumnal on the island named the day of its discovery by sailors of fortune and immortality.
- You rose from volcanoes into the peaceful ocean. The ring of water married you to birds and seeds and
- trees whose hollowed trunks
- brought hallowed people, worshiping the bond they changed for bondage. In towering stone faces, they
- pulled across the island's face on felled trees that grow no more. Easter, you are distant. Easter,
- you are near.
- Across a hemisphere, you ring in morning bird call and the coral that filled your eyes still shelters
- schools of fish in the rising oceans of a warming earth. In recent months, I'm afraid I've been working
- in the language of prose, not of poetry,
- writing letters to members of Congress who do not appreciate poems. So all that I have left here tonight
- in the way of new work is sketches, but I will read them unfinished in the hope that the members of
- Congress may be more attentive and we will have more time to write poetry. This synesthesia of suffering, light
- becomes sound. No, only ones and zeros, Bach's little numbers. A laser reads the harmony of anguish
- coded on compact disc. After the lightning, a dry crack of thunder and the parched wood takes to flame.
- At a computer in New Mexico, ones and noughts target a drone that strikes the synesthesia of suffering
- across a world of wars and unites in death those gathered for a wedding. May we work for peace in Afghanistan.
- Under the milky mist, a fungus creeps up the mountains and climbs an amphibian's back. The golden toad
- is gone. From extinction, there is no back. Poetry is what we remember. Poetry is what we make. Poetry
- is what we feel at the edge of wilderness
- that is forever lost to chainsaw and asphalt. The hamburger eats the rainforest as Alzheimer's eats
- the brain, but the other returns in terror and invasives, kudzu and zebra muscle, virus and al-Qaeda.
- The last Amur leopard
- is skinned for a coat to wear the wildness whose eyes we cannot meet. Thank you. I think we all want
- to thank David for his compassionate words, sharp edged and right on. Thank you.
- Next we have Nazarene. This is Nazarene.
- Which one I should use? There are two. Any of them? Is that better? That one works. In the 10th century,
- in a little village in the south of Iran, Persia, there lived a mystic poet. People came to see him,
- the villagers,
- and emirs and sultans alike bowed before him and listened to his poems. His name was Baba Tahir Orian,
- which means Baba Tahir the nude, perhaps because he shed the superficial exterior or perhaps because
- he just didn't want to wear clothes. So Baba Tahir,
- the nude, the mystic, wrote these poems that are very short. They're very simple, and I translated some
- of them. One of them I read to you. In Farsi, because you have to hear the sound.
- It is in the dialogue of the south. Sweeter than hyacinth is the breeze passing through your curls.
- At dawn, the scent of roses fills my bed when all night long I have embraced your image close to my
- heart. Last December, at the time of election, I was so touched
- So I wrote this little poem and you can guess to whom it refers.
- The trees were brocades of agate and gold. Suddenly a man rolled, enough killing, enough bloodshed.
- People turned their weary head to the side and with sad eyes gazed through the deep shadows of the unknown
- to a beam of light scintillating.
- He smiled gently. People chose the man from nowhere and everywhere. The world held its breath and watched
- in disbelief. Its dream hung on the man's voice and the wisdom of his words.
- now dare to dream once again of wondrous things to happen to this injured human family and this troubled
- little planet to dream of eternal peace covering as breathing air each far corner of earth and of happy
- children who dance.
- With each poem and with each thought that goes out, I am more overwhelmed. And now it is D. D and Louise.
- And I don't know how to, is that right? D and Louise.
- This is a last-minute decision, and I'm not the poet of this poem I'm going to share. A local poet,
- Barb Schwagman, wrote this back in 1998. And it still fits today, obviously, because we're all on a
- continuous journey for peace inside, as well as sharing it with the children and the world so that we
- will live in a better place.
- So here's a sample of the continuation of peace for all of us. I'm waiting on my music.
- It's hard to stop throwing rocks on the playground. Every Monday afternoon, Gracia comes to the room.
- She rings the Tibetan bells once for peaceful bodies, again for peaceful voices. Sometimes it works
- and sometimes it doesn't. And peace circle begins.
- She leads the four and five year olds into a journey of peacemaking. Peaceful puppy comes to play, stories
- are read, conflicts are talked about. We have worked for weeks, piecing together a community of children
- who will hopefully grow to care for each other. One morning I tell the children that I know it is not
- easy to stop fighting. I know because of
- my own past, the times in anger, I broke a favorite picture or vase, or worse, when I hit someone I
- love. I do not share those details with them, just the feelings. When I ask, is it hard to be a peacemaker,
- they all nod their heads yes. And one child raises his hand to say, it's hard to stop throwing rocks
- on the playground.
- I think our next performer is Brownie? Brownia? Brownia, I am sorry. I don't believe I had the pleasure.
- Hello, everybody. Yes, indeed. So many wonderful poems.
- so much passion that has been expressed here today. This was also a last minute decision for me to come
- and read a poem. It's going to be a mystical poem. I have been experimenting this week with reading
- Rumi and writing variations on his poems. And this is what I came up with.
- It doesn't really have a title. Probably the title should be variations on Rumi's poems. A great Iranian
- poet. I am lost in the call of all. The calling and the called are one. I am the garden, not just its
- rose. I am the sea.
- not just its fish. I am the sky, not just its cloud. I forsake existence for emptiness. That is the
- path of love. That is the path of peace. Revelation and light of God are one.
- The colors and perfumes we know are but a reflection of other colors and other perfumes, those of the
- heart, those of the soul. They are the joy far away from this earth made of water and clay.
- going back home to the soul's ocean. There is no home here where we are but the remembrance of the sea,
- a pearl separated from its shell. The death of the carnal soul is a blessing, allowing us once again
- to be in union with eternity
- the peaceful wave of God. The emptiness we fear provides us sustenance and abundance. The object of
- desire is in truth a scorpion pit. The beautiful expanse around it is life giving. The attachment to belief
- comforting habits and blood ties imprison us and make us afraid of living, thus depriving us of true
- delight. While here, be patient with your body's longings and discomforts. Knowledge of mysteries which
- illuminates the heart
- comes after mind is emptied. Freedom comes with being free from self. Move across the sky as an anonymous
- star. The power of hashish, heavy wine, and blessed sleep will not free you as well as drinking from
- the presence of the spirit.
- Therefore, choose carefully from the bouquets of freedom. Choose ecstasy unadulterated with urgency
- of need. Beyond space and time is the invisible world. The wine of this fleeting world makes your head ache.
- For it is a phantom giving you false signs. Shoot for the bull's eyes of bliss. Words and talk bring
- you pain, which can be relieved only by resting in the arms of the beloved. Turn to love's peerless
- cup instead. Your frame will wither, be old and dead,
- yet your soul will keep the eternal youth. The bells of parting sound for those who hear, who long to
- leave the momentary slumber for lands filled with heavenly tones, where friend meets friend in realms
- of secret glow and sacred fire.
- Here, water of the spirit too purifies and washes tears away, then filled with pollution not its own,
- returns to the well divine, to the fountain where it is bathed to trail again its course of glory. Like
- the king's arrow is pure heart, like lion in the mountains,
- like wind sweeping us to heaven with which we'll never part. For there we'll laugh at the phantom grief
- we suffered in the time of dreams. For there we shall behold the everlasting home. God here is invisible to us.
- For darkness he knows not of this perishing land, of this home of Travaille where ignorance and folly
- take us from palace to prison in a blink of an eye. And love is calling, ever calling for us in this
- diamond space cross of a waiting room.
- I have been honored to witness and feel everything that has come this way. And I just want everyone,
- every what? Okay. These are kind of those things that happen when you just
- Most of my family has fought for peace. And I guess men have been fighting for peace forever. My father
- was a Marine in the Second World War.
- He fought for peace. Oops, backwards, sorry. I had several uncles that fought for peace in the Korean War.
- Vietnam veteran. I fought for peace, too. But men have been fighting for peace since the beginning of
- time. Will there ever be an end? We may never know.
- Maybe we won't find peace until we all die and go to heaven. I think that's where my final peace will
- be in heaven. As I said, we will never know when peace will come, but I will always have peace in my
- heart and my soul.
- I just want to say that this has been more than anything I could ever imagined. I think the words have
- impacted all of us. I think they have hit us, and we all have a lot of thought to sleep on tonight.
- But I know that we're all here for one reason, and that is the compassion of peace. And I also want
- everyone to know that there is
- Also a movie downstairs. And it is definitely worth your time to watch. It is Soldiers of Peace. And
- we also have a word from Dennis Kucinich. And it is powerful. And it was written to Bloomington, Indiana.
- So to me, that is very huge. But before I, I just want to thank everyone that has shared their
- passion for peace. Okay, we're gonna have two more songs. I have no idea who's singing them. All righty
- then. Mitch, I like your singing. I do.
- So without social justice, peace is sort of a dream. And so we have to work both towards social justice
- and peace itself. We don't have that. The two have to go together. And this is a song written by Ralph
- Chaplin, better known for writing Solidarity Forever. He was an IWW songwriter along with Joe Hill in
- that same era in the early part of the 20th century.
- I love Solidarity forever and it's a great rouser, but this one I like quite a bit too. It's called
- the Commonwealth of Toil.
- of mighty cities, amidst the roar of whirling wheels, we're toiling on like chattel slaves of old. And
- our masters hope to keep us, ever thus beneath their heels, to turn our very lifeblood into gold. To
- this good part here. But we have this glowing dream of how fair the world will seem when we each can
- live our lives secure and free.
- the earth is owned by labor and there's joy and peace for all in the Commonwealth of toil that is to
- be. They would keep us cowed and beaten, cringing meekly at their feet. They'd stand between the worker
- and his bread. Must we yield our lives up to them for this bitter crust we eat? Must we only hope
- I know we have this glowing dream of how fair the world will seem when we each can live our lives secure
- and free. When the earth is owned by labor, there's joy and peace for all in the commonwealth of toil
- that is to be.
- cause is all triumphant. We regain Mother Earth and the nightmare of the present fades away. We will
- live with love and laughter. We who now are little worth will not regret this price we've had to pay.
- But we have this glowing dream of how fair the world will seem when we each can live our lives secure and free.
- And the earth is owned by labor. There's joy and peace for all in the commonwealth of toil that is to
- be. All right. And one more little social justice song. Or let's call it environmental justice here.
- And in honor of Tom and Sandra here who fought so long to save the forest.
- of Southern Indiana. It's one of the few tunes that I can say, hey, I wrote this. Well, now the big
- boys up in Indy, they like to spend our dough. When they drive down to Evansville, they feel, well,
- that's too slow. So they want $3 billion. Going to save eight minutes time.
- As we tear up southern Indiana, a land in its prime. We've been down this road before one too many times.
- Paving over Mother Earth, it really is a crime. We don't need more semis roaring through our land. Back
- down home in paradise here in southern Indiana.
- They say we need this highway to trade with Mexico. You know, we'll trade off jobs and industry and
- southward they will go. In the land of revolutions and cheap labor, they'll hide. So the average Hoosier
- just gets taken for a ride. We've been down this road before one too many times.
- Paving over Mother Earth, it really is a crime. You know, we don't need more semis roaring through our
- land. Back down home, it's paradise here in southern Indiana. Highway 69, they say, it'll bring us all
- great wealth. Breathing all those diesel fumes, well, it ain't good for your health.
- While working at a truck stop is the best job you could find. You know the nation's better jobs and
- days are now behind. It's sad. Hey, we've been down this road before one too many times. Hey, the over
- mother earth, it really is a crime. Now we don't need more semis roaring through our land.
- Back down home in paradise, southern Indiana. Now the Amish, they don't want it. It would tear their
- farms in two. But the governors say, building this road it's going through. You know, we've got to stick
- together to save our rural lands. We've got the power.
- The future's in our hands. We've been down this road before one too many times. Paving over Mother Earth,
- it really is a crime. You know, we don't need more semis roaring through our land. Back down home, it's
- paradise, southern India.
- Nah, you heard my story. You know what to do. Just call up the governor's state legislators too. Tell
- them we don't need this road. It'll do no good. We know they can cut the pork now if they only would.
- We've been down this road before one too many times.
- Waving over Mother Earth, it really is a crime. We don't need more semis roaring through our land. Back
- down home, it's paradise, southern Indiana.