WEBVTT 00:00:12.258 --> 00:00:23.884 - Hello? Hello? Oh. Yeah. I think I'm ready. Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello. Hello. All right. All right. 00:00:23.884 --> 00:00:35.627 - Here we are. This is the beginning of Peace Week. And I am honored to be here. And I'm honored to be 00:00:35.627 --> 00:00:40.510 - representing Peace Week in the Poorhouse. 00:00:40.994 --> 00:00:55.698 - And we are having a poetry reading. And right now, I would like to start out by introducing Thomas Tukarski. 00:00:55.698 --> 00:01:05.950 - And he is right here. Thank you all for coming tonight to talk about peace. 00:01:06.658 --> 00:01:13.482 - My first poem is actually about war, but it's a different kind of war. It's a kind of war that I could 00:01:13.482 --> 00:01:20.439 - support. About five years ago, Patricia Coleman put out a call for people to write poems about biscuits. 00:01:20.439 --> 00:01:27.131 - And I wrote this poem at that time. It's called Biscuit Wars. You know biscuits, those little wafers 00:01:27.131 --> 00:01:33.956 - that we have for breakfast? Biscuit Wars. What if bullets were biscuits shot from pastry guns? If land 00:01:33.956 --> 00:01:36.606 - mines were unbaked dough that exploded, 00:01:36.770 --> 00:01:44.297 - into warm, moist biscuits. What if snipers hidden in trees and tall buildings threw down biscuits on 00:01:44.297 --> 00:01:51.824 - the unsuspecting enemy? Wouldn't that be a blow for peace? Biscuit bombs would be such a surprise as 00:01:51.824 --> 00:01:59.276 - they bounced off soldiers' helmets. Parents would sigh with relief. Their children were finally out 00:01:59.276 --> 00:02:06.430 - of harm's way. Wouldn't it be a better kind of war if medals for bravery were homemade biscuits 00:02:06.626 --> 00:02:14.663 - of various shapes and colors filled with jam or wildflower honey. If giant statues of the biscuit were 00:02:14.663 --> 00:02:22.466 - erected in plazas and public squares around the world, biscuit generals would be welcomed with open 00:02:22.466 --> 00:02:30.658 - arms instead of deadly arms. Instead of guns and tanks, if we sold tons of ready-mixed biscuits to needy 00:02:30.658 --> 00:02:35.262 - countries and rebel groups, wouldn't hostilities decrease? 00:02:36.290 --> 00:02:43.902 - Suppose some rogue dictator got out of hand, couldn't noble nations of biscuit lovers everywhere, sit 00:02:43.902 --> 00:02:51.738 - him down over a homey meal of biscuits and gravy, and explain in no uncertain terms, stop this nonsense, 00:02:51.738 --> 00:02:59.200 - or you will eat nothing for the rest of your life but cold, freeze-dried, shrink-wrapped spam. That 00:02:59.200 --> 00:03:03.230 - horrific thought would certainly cause him to repent. 00:03:04.354 --> 00:03:13.872 - I believe biscuits could easily win the Nobel Peace Prize. For peace and welfare of all peoples, wouldn't 00:03:13.872 --> 00:03:23.210 - frequent outbreaks of steaming neighborly biscuits made with baking powder have a more nurturing effect 00:03:23.210 --> 00:03:32.638 - than the heartburn of metallic gunpowder wars? Among the most peaceful creatures on the earth are trees. 00:03:33.026 --> 00:03:40.827 - And they make life possible and unfortunately in many parts of the world we are at war with trees. We 00:03:40.827 --> 00:03:48.552 - must learn to make peace with trees. And this poem is my small bow to these peaceful creatures. It's 00:03:48.552 --> 00:03:56.430 - called Merging. A huge oak tree, lifeless in January, exposing massive trunk and thick spreading limbs 00:03:56.430 --> 00:03:58.878 - that thin to the smallest twigs 00:03:59.170 --> 00:04:08.901 - to the finest tips that merge with the vastly blue sky. Beneath the tree is a scattering of small birds, 00:04:08.901 --> 00:04:18.261 - weak winter voices and lean saplings. What is a tree but the roots of the sky and the fingers of the 00:04:18.261 --> 00:04:27.806 - earth quietly holding the world together? War brings out many kinds of heroes, violent and nonviolent. 00:04:28.322 --> 00:04:36.232 - This poem is based on a true story and a real person by the name of Smilovic. Perhaps you've heard of 00:04:36.232 --> 00:04:44.142 - him. The event occurred during the Bosnian War, and it is about a different kind of hero. It's called 00:04:44.142 --> 00:04:51.898 - a war story. Smilovic played the cello in a bomb crater for 22 days, one day for each person killed 00:04:51.898 --> 00:04:56.318 - by the blast. Then he played among the ruins of Sarajevo 00:04:56.546 --> 00:05:04.838 - to the tears and stares of all the war's victims until the cynics who could not bear his music of shame 00:05:04.838 --> 00:05:12.891 - threw him out. Smilovich was connected to a different sky than URI. He played his music with eternal 00:05:12.891 --> 00:05:21.023 - pain and hope. Though the dead were not revived and the killing continued, patiently from the tomb of 00:05:21.023 --> 00:05:26.206 - war rose a song of resurrection, the persistent memory of peace. 00:05:27.266 --> 00:05:36.041 - And then finally, if we are to have peace within ourselves, among ourselves, and peace with the earth, 00:05:36.041 --> 00:05:44.732 - we must begin to think in different ways than the way we think now. And the natural world has much to 00:05:44.732 --> 00:05:53.422 - teach us. I began the search for peace within myself by asking questions. This poem is called Another 00:05:53.422 --> 00:05:56.830 - Way. If you were immured in melancholy, 00:05:57.154 --> 00:06:05.122 - And I gave you a field of purple asters in autumn, each mauve disc encircling a bright yellow center 00:06:05.122 --> 00:06:13.091 - like the light of morning, a field of a thousand mornings. Would you take them with you into winter? 00:06:13.091 --> 00:06:21.059 - When the press of hours pushed like hairy crowds at your back and I showed you to a wide shore where 00:06:21.059 --> 00:06:27.134 - blue waves curled in line after line, scrambling and swirling over boulders, 00:06:27.298 --> 00:06:35.946 - pulling back to reform fluently, and I offered this rhythm as my gift of time. Would you call me impractical? 00:06:35.946 --> 00:06:44.202 - If you felt as empty as a line sketched on the crumpled scrap of paper, I told you of an old field where 00:06:44.202 --> 00:06:52.300 - seed-ranked growth of mazy colors woven with webs and songs overflowed, and I said that you could walk 00:06:52.300 --> 00:06:55.838 - in this fullness and swell like a chrysalis. 00:06:56.322 --> 00:07:04.644 - Would you dismiss me with incredulous eyes? I know an old apple tree twisting and gnarled that bears 00:07:04.644 --> 00:07:12.965 - sparse fruit. If I made you a seat beneath its thick and graceful limbs to nourish you with its age, 00:07:12.965 --> 00:07:21.617 - would you smile but think me foolish? If you were subdued by grief and I asked you to come with me where 00:07:21.617 --> 00:07:24.830 - waves rise and break like imagination, 00:07:24.930 --> 00:07:32.920 - Could you sit silent remembering until your sadness became the cry of seabirds? And if you grew haughty 00:07:32.920 --> 00:07:40.757 - and I asked you to leave your cities of glittering props and stay alone in a shadowless forest night, 00:07:40.757 --> 00:07:48.286 - could you wait there as the trees for the splintered light of morning? Thank you and go in peace. 00:07:59.458 --> 00:08:15.416 - penetrating to all of us and words to think about. And our next speaker is Thomas DeKarste. No. Oh, 00:08:15.416 --> 00:08:25.470 - Ray Zidonic. Yeah, I'm sorry. Sorry, Ray. Hi, I'm Ray Zidonic. 00:08:27.970 --> 00:08:37.214 - The first poem that I'm going to read is entitled A Nortista, and it's dedicated to Sister Dorothy Stang. 00:08:37.214 --> 00:08:46.196 - Dorothy Stang was an American nun who was an advocate for the poor and for the environment in the Para 00:08:46.196 --> 00:08:55.614 - state of Brazil. And a couple of years ago, she was killed by the thugs hired by rich landowners down there 00:08:55.906 --> 00:09:02.863 - are the same ones who are decimating the rainforests even as we speak. I noticed in the latest news 00:09:02.863 --> 00:09:09.889 - that they've arrested several people and they've gone to prison, but the ones who are behind it, the 00:09:09.889 --> 00:09:16.915 - higher ups are the ones that are getting released on appeals and so forth. And the people, the lower 00:09:16.915 --> 00:09:23.454 - soldiers are the ones who are still in prison. So justice is not fully done yet. Al Nortista. 00:09:27.586 --> 00:09:38.424 - Above the kingdoms of mud, the white bird soars. These peasants have trudged 20 miles under a gunpowder 00:09:38.424 --> 00:09:49.783 - sky. Lean men in rags, girls with ancient eyes carrying hopeless children bundled in dreams. Their patience, 00:09:49.783 --> 00:09:57.182 - their relentless faith, the deepest of mysteries. Strangers with guns, 00:09:57.730 --> 00:10:06.881 - horrors of greed and waste and violence, the spoilers who can never stop the beauty that surrounds them 00:10:06.881 --> 00:10:15.855 - like the rush of a great river, the holiness that rises from the earth itself like the breath of God. 00:10:15.855 --> 00:10:22.718 - Their souls will be left to wither in the equatorial sun, just spoiled fruit. 00:10:28.290 --> 00:10:42.759 - on a lighter note. Small Pleasures. The small pleasures, a dry, quiet place to sleep and read, access 00:10:42.759 --> 00:10:56.094 - to trees and water, food and laughter, the open air, gentle words, time. At Cedar Creek Farm, 00:10:57.954 --> 00:11:06.931 - We took a walk at sundown through bare trees, across frozen ground, down to the creek, cold and hard 00:11:06.931 --> 00:11:15.996 - as a diamond. We talked of peace, glad we'd remembered gloves. Later at the wood stove, we settled in 00:11:15.996 --> 00:11:24.972 - to watch the sky redden through the western wall. As the dog fell asleep and we lapsed into a mutual 00:11:24.972 --> 00:11:26.750 - silence, I thought, 00:11:28.002 --> 00:11:38.071 - Let the hope begin right here. Oh, brother, subtitle Pacific Political Polemic. In whose name, friend, 00:11:38.071 --> 00:11:48.727 - does the war machine operate? In your name, America, the teacher from Topeka, the realtor from Poughkeepsie, 00:11:48.727 --> 00:11:56.254 - the retired steel worker from Youngstown, the disabled veteran from Seattle, 00:11:57.506 --> 00:12:06.036 - In your name, Congress has exposed its war chest, the homeless grandmother in Oakland, the CEO vacationing 00:12:06.036 --> 00:12:14.168 - in Aruba. All of us load the cartridges into our bank accounts, launch the reconnaissance drones with 00:12:14.168 --> 00:12:22.300 - our investment portfolios. We point the rifles with our indifference, reboot the weapons systems with 00:12:22.300 --> 00:12:26.366 - our capacity to deny. In our silence, we languish. 00:12:27.010 --> 00:12:38.011 - and self-deception we linger. And when all else fails, we just gasp up the car and go. Vox populi. It 00:12:38.011 --> 00:12:48.905 - is the definition of wonder that we are here on this crooked road. Here the journeyman of truth must 00:12:48.905 --> 00:12:53.758 - now trace out the elusive outlines of peace. 00:12:55.170 --> 00:13:06.713 - After all, the blade is a weapon to the soldier, but a tool to the surgeon. In the end, we all share 00:13:06.713 --> 00:13:18.256 - the same breath, that primal breath that is the mother of time. And my last poem, Martin Luther King 00:13:18.256 --> 00:13:24.542 - Day, 2008. Nina Simone sang, the king of love is dead. 00:13:25.634 --> 00:13:35.022 - Her words still caress the walls of empty rooms in Harlem. Hers is the voice of the eternal outsider, 00:13:35.022 --> 00:13:44.962 - forever on the threshold but never crossing. The mountaintop speech, the last he would ever make, traveling 00:13:44.962 --> 00:13:54.718 - at the speed of hope to the end of the known universe, like a burning star growing younger, ever younger. 00:13:55.266 --> 00:14:16.286 - until it is born. Thank you. Wow. Our next poet is Patricia Siegel. 00:14:29.602 --> 00:14:38.509 - Good evening. I had planned on reading a story from the Tree of Peace, and instead I pulled an excerpt 00:14:38.509 --> 00:14:47.330 - from it that I'd like to read first. Dagana Wita, also known as Hiawatha, spoke long ago of the great 00:14:47.330 --> 00:14:56.064 - lie that has become rooted in the hearts and consciousness of the world's peoples. He called the lie 00:14:56.064 --> 00:14:57.534 - the Tree of War, 00:14:58.722 --> 00:15:07.203 - Asking the people to eradicate the habits of the tree of war by releasing the habits of warfare and 00:15:07.203 --> 00:15:16.023 - violence from ourselves and all nations, by replacing the lie with the truth of love. Working together, 00:15:16.023 --> 00:15:24.503 - we have the power to plant ideas and actions to seed and create a loving, sustainable world. From a 00:15:24.503 --> 00:15:26.878 - sacred people, we all came. 00:15:28.066 --> 00:15:36.793 - And we all came from a sacred people, even if we have forgotten the knowledge of our soul stories drawn 00:15:36.793 --> 00:15:45.437 - as thin starlight strides, it is all timeless inner knowing. Within we hold the only key anchored upon 00:15:45.437 --> 00:15:53.912 - ancestral and genetic memories, swimming invisible and silent, twining perfect threads that bind one 00:15:53.912 --> 00:15:56.094 - generation into the next. 00:15:57.442 --> 00:16:05.733 - We are all partners of unspoken desire, ever to search creation cradling shadow dreams. We are manifest 00:16:05.733 --> 00:16:13.784 - seeds of possibilities, capable of new snow wholeness. We travel through what we call living, mostly 00:16:13.784 --> 00:16:21.118 - unaware and untouched by our true selves, bypassing memories of truth that ache our dreams. 00:16:21.570 --> 00:16:30.369 - and weigh our hearts with desires, feeling heavy like water, washing strong like black syrup sap, sweet 00:16:30.369 --> 00:16:38.915 - and sticky. Try to remember inner streams hidden like shadow rivers coursing deep within our earthly 00:16:38.915 --> 00:16:44.414 - bodies, ever flowing us toward opportunities for sacred knowing. 00:16:44.802 --> 00:16:54.997 - Turn hidden corners with conscious understanding. Place the taste of stars upon our skins. Let mindfulness 00:16:54.997 --> 00:17:04.525 - pull on our tongues. From a sacred people, we all came. Always each of us dancing toward the breath 00:17:04.525 --> 00:17:06.526 - from whence we came. 00:17:07.778 --> 00:17:17.522 - Through timeless sacred sources where once we knew the knowledge of riding light, memories of wholeness 00:17:17.522 --> 00:17:27.079 - cut through shadow shroud, knowingness of inseparable being, let each determine inner sense of peace, 00:17:27.079 --> 00:17:36.542 - inner sense of being, of love flowering open like a rose or lotus to the radiant self source emerge. 00:17:40.098 --> 00:17:49.239 - Say it like a mantra or we might yet find our way. Written after watching a PBS nature documentary about 00:17:49.239 --> 00:17:58.031 - a life study of humans through the observation of baboons. In some remaining ancient languages where 00:17:58.031 --> 00:18:06.737 - no word for war exists, like the disappearing Nahuatl, where the closest they get to addressing the 00:18:06.737 --> 00:18:08.478 - heinous violence of 00:18:08.578 --> 00:18:17.401 - human against life is through the word pakelistili, which translates to no war. I like to use it like 00:18:17.401 --> 00:18:26.484 - a mantra, pakelistili, pakelistili, pakelistili. Sometimes I say it in rounds of seven as I move through 00:18:26.484 --> 00:18:35.307 - the day. It brings my attentive mind back to sweet, lilting sounds of hope. The way pakelistili rolls 00:18:35.307 --> 00:18:37.470 - easily across my tongue, 00:18:37.890 --> 00:18:47.507 - Consider it like a rare, rediscovered fruit, Pakalistili, blossoming just for this moment, 00:18:47.507 --> 00:18:57.758 - the next day, next year, beyond into the next seven generations, and farther still, Pakalistili. 00:18:58.562 --> 00:19:06.355 - When aggressive male baboons who tortured and attacked females, less aggressive males and children died 00:19:06.355 --> 00:19:13.923 - out after greedily consuming diseased and poisoned foods, leaving none for the other tribal members, 00:19:13.923 --> 00:19:21.641 - they left behind a gentler, transformed community of nurturing females and males to assume leadership, 00:19:21.641 --> 00:19:24.638 - pakalistili. Immediately, this skittish 00:19:24.770 --> 00:19:33.803 - culture of violent uncertainty grew into a thriving, playfully content culture and community where, 00:19:33.803 --> 00:19:43.016 - even as decades have passed, these baboons still do not allow violent, dominating males or females to 00:19:43.016 --> 00:19:52.862 - become established within their community of supportive accord. Remember, this is a true story, Pakalistili. 00:19:53.346 --> 00:20:02.103 - I recall another true story, that of the hundredth monkey. There are others among us who recall it too. 00:20:02.103 --> 00:20:11.197 - Like a mantra, Pakalistili means we find a way to know war on ourselves, our home earth and co-inhabitants. 00:20:11.197 --> 00:20:19.870 - Pakalistili, Pakalistili, Pakalistili. A dreamer I am. With all who imagine the possibility of no war, 00:20:20.130 --> 00:20:29.091 - Now and for what I hope we may dance as a real tomorrow, Pakalistili. In my dreams, I see chrysalis 00:20:29.091 --> 00:20:38.590 - around us. We might yet find our way collectively toward peace as we open to heart meaning of the Nahuatl 00:20:38.590 --> 00:20:41.278 - word, Pakalistili. Thank you. 00:20:51.490 --> 00:20:59.238 - an overwhelming thing for me to do because every single person that comes up here and speaks just takes 00:20:59.238 --> 00:21:06.763 - me to another place. And now I would like to introduce Elizabeth Hoover and Mitch Rice will be doing 00:21:06.763 --> 00:21:07.582 - the music. 00:21:18.818 --> 00:21:25.981 - to thank the organizers for putting this together and also for inviting me to read. And when I was invited 00:21:25.981 --> 00:21:32.808 - to read, I started looking through all of my poetry. And I realized that I don't really have anything 00:21:32.808 --> 00:21:39.502 - that I would characterize as peace poetry. I have tons of anti-war poems. But it seems that none of 00:21:39.502 --> 00:21:46.196 - them would be characterized as peace poetry. And at first, I was really disappointed in myself. But 00:21:46.196 --> 00:21:48.606 - I think it attests to the fact that 00:21:49.442 --> 00:21:56.314 - Our society has become so militarized, and the military is so entrenched in our understanding that it's 00:21:56.314 --> 00:22:03.252 - nearly impossible to imagine what peace would mean. This will expose my youth, but I was in eighth grade 00:22:03.252 --> 00:22:10.388 - during Operation Desert Storm, and we've been bombing Iraq on and off ever since. So it's almost impossible 00:22:10.388 --> 00:22:17.326 - for me to imagine what the world would be like. So I think it's really important for us to come together 00:22:17.326 --> 00:22:18.846 - and try to imagine it. 00:22:19.650 --> 00:22:31.210 - I'm going to lead off. This is called the altar. And it seems to me that one of the ways that we convince 00:22:31.210 --> 00:22:42.334 - people to participate in war is to create myths about what being in war does to you, and it makes you 00:22:42.626 --> 00:22:51.042 - heroic and it makes you glorious. And it seems like these myths have been going on for millennium. This 00:22:51.042 --> 00:22:59.457 - is based on the Odyssey, the final episode in the Odyssey. The Altar. Odysseus's final task was to walk 00:22:59.457 --> 00:23:07.711 - into the bronze wheat and ore nested next to his shoulder mound as people came from their houses like 00:23:07.711 --> 00:23:10.462 - schools of curious minnows. Walk. 00:23:10.818 --> 00:23:19.917 - until a farmer who never knew the surprise of salt asked if he was carrying a winnowing fan. There he 00:23:19.917 --> 00:23:28.838 - was to stop, plant the ore, and erect an altar to the hoary god who had dogged him, clawing his men 00:23:28.838 --> 00:23:37.759 - one by one from his ship to helix, unwept in the current. The ore stuck from the altar like the arm 00:23:37.759 --> 00:23:39.454 - of a drowning man, 00:23:39.810 --> 00:23:48.197 - as he walked lighter back home to his newly forged soldier son and his wife's weaving arms, while the 00:23:48.197 --> 00:23:56.748 - altar grew dreams of the ocean that splashed over the lintels, sprinkling the sun's who woke, crunching 00:23:56.748 --> 00:24:05.052 - the salt foam that tipped the crests of their desire to follow the astringent path the stranger left 00:24:05.052 --> 00:24:08.670 - in the air and make the air stranger there. 00:24:09.666 --> 00:24:18.107 - They journeyed through forest felled for ships, toward the flickering maws of smelting ovens, the bright 00:24:18.107 --> 00:24:26.226 - spin of shields, the netted hull of blades. Such willing fodder, following the promise of adventure, 00:24:26.226 --> 00:24:34.587 - the promise that their churning needs would be sated, husks blown away on the sea as they stand, golden 00:24:34.587 --> 00:24:38.526 - at the prow, shearing through the blue to glory. 00:24:42.594 --> 00:24:54.703 - This piece is called Helen's Face. Contrary to popular belief, Helen's Face did not launch 1,000 ships. 00:24:54.703 --> 00:25:06.578 - It, in fact, launched 1,186 ships. And we know this because the poet of the Iliad cataloged each one, 00:25:06.578 --> 00:25:11.934 - naming its home cove. Homer spends 300 verses 00:25:12.034 --> 00:25:20.993 - giving each harbor a lineage, noting how each tree shuddered into the shipmaker's yard. Even the fishing 00:25:20.993 --> 00:25:30.037 - villages that contributed only one ship never to return are mentioned. After all, they too had to marshal 00:25:30.037 --> 00:25:39.081 - an entire forest, leave themselves surrounded by stumps, their hills blank as those fields in Iowa dotted 00:25:39.081 --> 00:25:40.190 - with hangars 00:25:40.482 --> 00:25:49.233 - where women in floppy shower caps pat the belly of the bomb before cross-hatching it with chalk, hoisting 00:25:49.233 --> 00:25:57.735 - it on a chain, and sailing it across the room where straw-lined boxes weight like mangers. Didn't that 00:25:57.735 --> 00:26:06.321 - little cue ball Eisenhower say something about this, about how much each weapon cost in terms of wheat? 00:26:06.321 --> 00:26:10.366 - No matter, they are weighed out in vague tonnage 00:26:10.658 --> 00:26:20.865 - somewhere in the Midwest, in places that look oddly familiar when we drive by. But who could name them? 00:26:20.865 --> 00:26:30.778 - Who remembers their names if we ever even knew them? We have trees and faces in spades. Thank you. I 00:26:30.778 --> 00:26:39.710 - just want to thank Elizabeth for bringing out the fact that with peace, there is also war. 00:26:39.938 --> 00:26:49.717 - There is an epic we cannot get away from. Thank you for bringing it into perspective for us. And our 00:26:49.717 --> 00:26:50.782 - next poet. 00:27:07.330 --> 00:27:15.965 - As we all know, many songs are poems, and quite a few poems are songs. And I'm going to bring the two 00:27:15.965 --> 00:27:24.854 - together. This one is by Ewan McCall, well-known folk singer of Scotland, songwriter, singer-songwriter. 00:27:24.854 --> 00:27:30.526 - And some of you should know it, so sing along if you feel like it. 00:27:51.522 --> 00:28:05.216 - I just dreamed, I never dreamed before. I dreamed the world had all agreed to put an end to war. I dreamed 00:28:05.216 --> 00:28:18.014 - I saw this mighty realm was filled with women and men. The paper that they were signing said they'd 00:28:18.014 --> 00:28:20.446 - never fight again. 00:28:25.282 --> 00:28:37.587 - paper was all signed and a million copies were made lay all joined hands they bowed their heads thankful 00:28:37.587 --> 00:28:45.790 - prayers were said while the people in the streets people were dancing 00:29:20.258 --> 00:29:46.046 - So the next one up is by Buffy Sinkferee. I once had the pleasure of meeting. 00:29:46.626 --> 00:29:52.274 - This is a really great song of hers. If I can find the right harmonica, I don't even know that I need 00:29:52.274 --> 00:29:58.366 - it. It's got a lot of words in it. If you know them, sing along. If not, listen, they're pretty doggone good. 00:30:25.794 --> 00:30:38.598 - He's five foot two and six feet four. He fights with missiles and with spears. He's all a 31. He's only 00:30:38.598 --> 00:30:51.032 - 17. Been a soldier for a thousand years. He's a Catholic and a Hindu, an atheist, a Jain, a Buddhist 00:30:51.032 --> 00:30:54.110 - and a Baptist and a Jew. 00:30:55.714 --> 00:31:07.051 - Now he knows he mustn't kill But he knows he always will Kill you for me, me for you He's fighting for 00:31:07.051 --> 00:31:18.388 - the Russians He's fighting for Japan Fighting for the U.S. of A He's fighting for Brazil He's fighting 00:31:18.388 --> 00:31:24.222 - for Japan He thinks we'll put an end to war this way 00:31:26.082 --> 00:31:36.588 - Universal soldier he really is to blame For his orders come from far away no more They come from him 00:31:36.588 --> 00:31:44.702 - and you and me People can't just see This is not the way to put an end to war 00:31:57.026 --> 00:32:04.453 - Do I have time for one more or should I go into the poets next? Okay. One last one, a little bit of 00:32:04.453 --> 00:32:12.399 - a sing along. This one is by Anonymous. And that anonymous person wrote this with other anonymous persons. 00:32:12.399 --> 00:32:15.518 - And you all sing with the chorus, I hope. 00:32:36.962 --> 00:32:47.785 - I'm gonna lay down my sword and shield Down by the riverside Wave down the riverside Down by the riverside 00:32:47.785 --> 00:32:58.202 - I'm gonna lay down my sword and shield Down by the riverside Study war no more I ain't gonna study war 00:32:58.202 --> 00:33:02.046 - no more Ain't gonna study war no more 00:33:02.210 --> 00:33:12.930 - Ain't gonna study war Gonna study war no more Ain't gonna study war no more Ain't gonna study war no 00:33:12.930 --> 00:33:23.544 - more Ain't gonna study that war no more Take a way down the atom bomb Down by the riverside Down by 00:33:23.544 --> 00:33:30.974 - the riverside Down by the riverside And don't lay down that atom bomb 00:33:31.458 --> 00:33:41.413 - Down by the riverside, study war no more. I ain't gonna study war no more. Ain't gonna study war no 00:33:41.413 --> 00:33:51.867 - more. Ain't gonna study war. Ain't gonna study war no more. I ain't gonna study war no more. Ain't gonna 00:33:51.867 --> 00:33:57.342 - study war no more. Ain't gonna study that war no more. 00:33:59.106 --> 00:34:10.115 - I say we shake hands all around the world Down by the riverside Down by the riverside Down by the riverside 00:34:10.115 --> 00:34:20.411 - And we'll shake hands all around the world Down by the riverside And we'll study war no more I ain't 00:34:20.411 --> 00:34:28.158 - gonna study war no more Ain't gonna study war no more Ain't gonna study war 00:34:29.026 --> 00:34:46.401 - 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 00:34:46.401 --> 00:34:59.006 - no more I ain't no 31 no more I ain't no 31 no more I ain't no 31 no more 00:34:59.458 --> 00:35:10.496 - Down by the riverside Study war no more I ain't gonna study war no more Ain't gonna study war no more 00:35:10.496 --> 00:35:21.535 - Ain't gonna study war Ain't gonna study war no more I ain't gonna study war no more Ain't gonna study 00:35:21.535 --> 00:35:25.214 - war no more Ain't gonna study war 00:35:35.106 --> 00:35:49.023 - Thank you. Thank you, Mitch Rice. That was awesome. And we needed it. We needed a little uplifting. 00:35:49.023 --> 00:36:03.774 - And now we have Joya Duds. Yeah, I know. You're welcome. Sometimes I'm a Heimer dad. Sometimes I'm a dad. 00:36:04.066 --> 00:36:16.942 - Sometimes I'm just Julia. Just Julia. I'll start out with solemn and move toward tender. I think that's 00:36:16.942 --> 00:36:29.571 - a direction to go. In the sand. You've watched the news footage bootlegged from the cockpit. 40 or so 00:36:29.571 --> 00:36:32.542 - insurgents. No, humans. 00:36:33.058 --> 00:36:40.930 - blown up from above, left below a pockmark in the beige desert, shadowed by metal wings. Dude, says 00:36:40.930 --> 00:36:49.116 - the boy at ground control to the boy who pushed the button. So like my son, thumb pressing the controls 00:36:49.116 --> 00:36:57.066 - of the game he networks into, earpiece and microphone, ignoring the insurgent little brothers in his 00:36:57.066 --> 00:37:00.766 - background, his focus shrinking them to static 00:37:01.154 --> 00:37:09.988 - eddying specks behind him as he flies into an imagined future. You are solemn, integrating into your 00:37:09.988 --> 00:37:18.735 - day this newscast glimpse of thus it has ever been. Me, I am mother to one or to all of those boys, 00:37:18.735 --> 00:37:28.094 - all of them lost. And like all mothers ever, thus ever on the ground, foreign and familiar in their black, 00:37:28.482 --> 00:37:37.630 - mouth open and shouting at the sky, another language dust on the tongue, sand in the teeth, no holding 00:37:37.630 --> 00:37:46.511 - here, hands scrabbling the unkind air, my black open mouth sounding a sound longing to be forgotten 00:37:46.511 --> 00:37:55.570 - that leaves no mark behind, no track or trail, a sound that we all finally must utter and understand. 00:37:55.570 --> 00:37:57.790 - Chogim Chunpa says that, 00:37:58.050 --> 00:38:08.644 - The spiritual warrior walks around with a tenderness so deep that the tears are right at the brim of 00:38:08.644 --> 00:38:19.237 - our eyes. I think loving life does that for us. The wing is hollow bone. Here in heaven, bird flight 00:38:19.237 --> 00:38:25.950 - describes the turn of my head, the lift of coffee cup to mouth, 00:38:26.594 --> 00:38:38.004 - ink on a page. Here, right here in heaven, breeze catches the chimes eye and the two fall in love. In 00:38:38.004 --> 00:38:49.303 - the way of those who have loved before, tentatively with meaning. Here in this small heaven, dew and 00:38:49.303 --> 00:38:56.574 - dirt and the exultant grief of peony beckon skin towards shiver. 00:38:57.186 --> 00:39:06.855 - If I wade into this tide of vine and leaf, the undertow of honeysuckles swoons into the swell of wild 00:39:06.855 --> 00:39:16.998 - rose, their lips of silk tonguing sugar's first breath into mine, here in today's only heaven, the flitter 00:39:16.998 --> 00:39:22.686 - of pulse thoughtlessly lifts its wing as if it always will. 00:39:26.274 --> 00:39:36.362 - If the dead could speak, do you think they could warn us off our summaries, the grandeur and delusion 00:39:36.362 --> 00:39:46.253 - of putting it all together? The whetstone of history here milling our present sharpens us to grieve 00:39:46.253 --> 00:39:51.198 - through or laugh, whichever the moment calls for. 00:39:52.962 --> 00:40:05.984 - Like how breaking open that black sunflower seed is all this chickadee is about. That is what it means. 00:40:05.984 --> 00:40:19.006 - How the stream means bank and watercress, oxygen, fish and frog, rain, lake, ocean. How it means blood. 00:40:20.034 --> 00:40:36.666 - And how blood always means change. And change means death. How death means a seed, a chickadee, a stream. 00:40:36.666 --> 00:40:47.806 - Yes, they whisper lovingly. Nothing but lovingly. Something like that. 00:40:49.186 --> 00:41:02.416 - How to build an ark. Stop counting. Empty all vessels. Do not sharpen what cuts. Can we attend to others 00:41:02.416 --> 00:41:15.646 - so that we may forget mere politeness? Let the wind of noise die down. Let the light of action play out. 00:41:17.634 --> 00:41:29.771 - Breathe in what is unbelievable, that which seems most obvious. Heartbeat and bread, firelight, the 00:41:29.771 --> 00:41:42.272 - beating of night upon leaf. Like the past, it is only in the face of perishing we find a way to float. 00:41:42.272 --> 00:41:47.006 - Unlike the past, lumber is not needed. 00:41:47.682 --> 00:42:05.845 - and the timing uncertain. Meanwhile, whenever possible, discover sky and laugh. Practice. Practice floating. 00:42:05.845 --> 00:42:16.510 - And thank you, Julia Heimer-Datz. That was riveting. Thank you. 00:42:17.730 --> 00:42:41.822 - And our next speaker is David Kepfer. I'm glad we had such strong and hopeful poetry. 00:42:42.338 --> 00:42:54.430 - I am guilty of writing anti-war poetry, perhaps more than peace poetry. I would only say that naming 00:42:54.430 --> 00:43:06.402 - the unacceptable is itself an act of hope. Broken interrogations. I still do not know whether I did 00:43:06.402 --> 00:43:11.550 - what you will always know was done to you. 00:43:12.866 --> 00:43:24.550 - Did I hold a dog to your terrified nakedness or perch you on a box, your outstretched arms wired to 00:43:24.550 --> 00:43:36.934 - the current of fear? Did I pile your bodies in a pyramid of shame and photograph you as Pharaoh's phallic 00:43:36.934 --> 00:43:41.374 - souvenir? Did I bar you from the home 00:43:41.858 --> 00:43:54.624 - you dare not return to because I dare not leave. Tell me what I have done. I beg you as you begged me. 00:43:54.624 --> 00:44:07.390 - Tell me what I can do. Now there is nothing I can do to make you forget that my people never remember. 00:44:09.378 --> 00:44:23.636 - Or if my plea for forgiveness is a new twist of torture, then let me thirst in the dryness of your memories 00:44:23.636 --> 00:44:36.838 - until you reach the waters of my oblivion. The Burial of the Landless. This is about Brazil like an 00:44:36.838 --> 00:44:38.686 - earlier poem. 00:44:38.850 --> 00:44:51.515 - this evening. It floats to light between the glassy sky and the cracked earth's glare down a rolling 00:44:51.515 --> 00:45:04.180 - road to nowhere. They walk against the light, burden resting like a bird, a lighting on the father's 00:45:04.180 --> 00:45:08.318 - shoulder. His fingers web spread 00:45:08.898 --> 00:45:25.042 - like the arch of a column under the box that is his child. The mother carries nothing toward the earth 00:45:25.042 --> 00:45:35.230 - that offers nothing but a home for her dead. Easter, the island. 00:45:38.754 --> 00:45:51.990 - Easter falls autumnal on the island named the day of its discovery by sailors of fortune and immortality. 00:45:51.990 --> 00:46:04.726 - You rose from volcanoes into the peaceful ocean. The ring of water married you to birds and seeds and 00:46:04.726 --> 00:46:08.222 - trees whose hollowed trunks 00:46:08.578 --> 00:46:21.399 - brought hallowed people, worshiping the bond they changed for bondage. In towering stone faces, they 00:46:21.399 --> 00:46:34.093 - pulled across the island's face on felled trees that grow no more. Easter, you are distant. Easter, 00:46:34.093 --> 00:46:35.870 - you are near. 00:46:36.930 --> 00:46:48.372 - Across a hemisphere, you ring in morning bird call and the coral that filled your eyes still shelters 00:46:48.372 --> 00:47:00.039 - schools of fish in the rising oceans of a warming earth. In recent months, I'm afraid I've been working 00:47:00.039 --> 00:47:04.638 - in the language of prose, not of poetry, 00:47:05.026 --> 00:47:14.543 - writing letters to members of Congress who do not appreciate poems. So all that I have left here tonight 00:47:14.543 --> 00:47:23.607 - in the way of new work is sketches, but I will read them unfinished in the hope that the members of 00:47:23.607 --> 00:47:33.758 - Congress may be more attentive and we will have more time to write poetry. This synesthesia of suffering, light 00:47:34.050 --> 00:47:47.664 - becomes sound. No, only ones and zeros, Bach's little numbers. A laser reads the harmony of anguish 00:47:47.664 --> 00:48:01.822 - coded on compact disc. After the lightning, a dry crack of thunder and the parched wood takes to flame. 00:48:03.298 --> 00:48:17.450 - At a computer in New Mexico, ones and noughts target a drone that strikes the synesthesia of suffering 00:48:17.450 --> 00:48:32.702 - across a world of wars and unites in death those gathered for a wedding. May we work for peace in Afghanistan. 00:48:34.274 --> 00:48:46.367 - Under the milky mist, a fungus creeps up the mountains and climbs an amphibian's back. The golden toad 00:48:46.367 --> 00:48:58.459 - is gone. From extinction, there is no back. Poetry is what we remember. Poetry is what we make. Poetry 00:48:58.459 --> 00:49:03.390 - is what we feel at the edge of wilderness 00:49:03.586 --> 00:49:16.827 - that is forever lost to chainsaw and asphalt. The hamburger eats the rainforest as Alzheimer's eats 00:49:16.827 --> 00:49:30.333 - the brain, but the other returns in terror and invasives, kudzu and zebra muscle, virus and al-Qaeda. 00:49:30.333 --> 00:49:33.246 - The last Amur leopard 00:49:34.242 --> 00:49:50.275 - is skinned for a coat to wear the wildness whose eyes we cannot meet. Thank you. I think we all want 00:49:50.275 --> 00:50:03.134 - to thank David for his compassionate words, sharp edged and right on. Thank you. 00:50:03.586 --> 00:50:26.526 - Next we have Nazarene. This is Nazarene. 00:50:35.490 --> 00:50:48.974 - Which one I should use? There are two. Any of them? Is that better? That one works. In the 10th century, 00:50:48.974 --> 00:51:01.944 - in a little village in the south of Iran, Persia, there lived a mystic poet. People came to see him, 00:51:01.944 --> 00:51:03.870 - the villagers, 00:51:04.322 --> 00:51:16.333 - and emirs and sultans alike bowed before him and listened to his poems. His name was Baba Tahir Orian, 00:51:16.333 --> 00:51:28.110 - which means Baba Tahir the nude, perhaps because he shed the superficial exterior or perhaps because 00:51:28.110 --> 00:51:34.174 - he just didn't want to wear clothes. So Baba Tahir, 00:51:34.946 --> 00:51:49.043 - the nude, the mystic, wrote these poems that are very short. They're very simple, and I translated some 00:51:49.043 --> 00:52:00.158 - of them. One of them I read to you. In Farsi, because you have to hear the sound. 00:52:02.018 --> 00:52:30.366 - It is in the dialogue of the south. Sweeter than hyacinth is the breeze passing through your curls. 00:52:31.586 --> 00:52:49.749 - At dawn, the scent of roses fills my bed when all night long I have embraced your image close to my 00:52:49.749 --> 00:53:01.374 - heart. Last December, at the time of election, I was so touched 00:53:02.370 --> 00:53:30.366 - So I wrote this little poem and you can guess to whom it refers. 00:53:30.818 --> 00:53:41.983 - The trees were brocades of agate and gold. Suddenly a man rolled, enough killing, enough bloodshed. 00:53:41.983 --> 00:53:53.930 - People turned their weary head to the side and with sad eyes gazed through the deep shadows of the unknown 00:53:53.930 --> 00:53:57.726 - to a beam of light scintillating. 00:53:59.650 --> 00:54:14.680 - He smiled gently. People chose the man from nowhere and everywhere. The world held its breath and watched 00:54:14.680 --> 00:54:25.598 - in disbelief. Its dream hung on the man's voice and the wisdom of his words. 00:54:27.138 --> 00:54:39.285 - now dare to dream once again of wondrous things to happen to this injured human family and this troubled 00:54:39.285 --> 00:54:51.316 - little planet to dream of eternal peace covering as breathing air each far corner of earth and of happy 00:54:51.316 --> 00:54:53.630 - children who dance. 00:55:06.242 --> 00:55:21.652 - With each poem and with each thought that goes out, I am more overwhelmed. And now it is D. D and Louise. 00:55:21.652 --> 00:55:29.502 - And I don't know how to, is that right? D and Louise. 00:55:32.194 --> 00:55:40.691 - This is a last-minute decision, and I'm not the poet of this poem I'm going to share. A local poet, 00:55:40.691 --> 00:55:49.187 - Barb Schwagman, wrote this back in 1998. And it still fits today, obviously, because we're all on a 00:55:49.187 --> 00:55:57.854 - continuous journey for peace inside, as well as sharing it with the children and the world so that we 00:55:57.854 --> 00:56:00.318 - will live in a better place. 00:56:00.770 --> 00:56:12.030 - So here's a sample of the continuation of peace for all of us. I'm waiting on my music. 00:56:34.082 --> 00:56:44.582 - It's hard to stop throwing rocks on the playground. Every Monday afternoon, Gracia comes to the room. 00:56:44.582 --> 00:56:54.876 - She rings the Tibetan bells once for peaceful bodies, again for peaceful voices. Sometimes it works 00:56:54.876 --> 00:57:00.126 - and sometimes it doesn't. And peace circle begins. 00:57:01.186 --> 00:57:09.933 - She leads the four and five year olds into a journey of peacemaking. Peaceful puppy comes to play, stories 00:57:09.933 --> 00:57:18.516 - are read, conflicts are talked about. We have worked for weeks, piecing together a community of children 00:57:18.516 --> 00:57:26.854 - who will hopefully grow to care for each other. One morning I tell the children that I know it is not 00:57:26.854 --> 00:57:30.206 - easy to stop fighting. I know because of 00:57:30.370 --> 00:57:38.935 - my own past, the times in anger, I broke a favorite picture or vase, or worse, when I hit someone I 00:57:38.935 --> 00:57:48.184 - love. I do not share those details with them, just the feelings. When I ask, is it hard to be a peacemaker, 00:57:48.184 --> 00:57:56.835 - they all nod their heads yes. And one child raises his hand to say, it's hard to stop throwing rocks 00:57:56.835 --> 00:57:58.462 - on the playground. 00:58:15.394 --> 00:58:33.131 - I think our next performer is Brownie? Brownia? Brownia, I am sorry. I don't believe I had the pleasure. 00:58:33.131 --> 00:58:42.590 - Hello, everybody. Yes, indeed. So many wonderful poems. 00:58:43.842 --> 00:58:54.898 - so much passion that has been expressed here today. This was also a last minute decision for me to come 00:58:54.898 --> 00:59:05.529 - and read a poem. It's going to be a mystical poem. I have been experimenting this week with reading 00:59:05.529 --> 00:59:13.502 - Rumi and writing variations on his poems. And this is what I came up with. 00:59:14.946 --> 00:59:28.695 - It doesn't really have a title. Probably the title should be variations on Rumi's poems. A great Iranian 00:59:28.695 --> 00:59:42.051 - poet. I am lost in the call of all. The calling and the called are one. I am the garden, not just its 00:59:42.051 --> 00:59:44.670 - rose. I am the sea. 00:59:46.306 --> 01:00:01.189 - not just its fish. I am the sky, not just its cloud. I forsake existence for emptiness. That is the 01:00:01.189 --> 01:00:12.798 - path of love. That is the path of peace. Revelation and light of God are one. 01:00:13.890 --> 01:00:27.651 - The colors and perfumes we know are but a reflection of other colors and other perfumes, those of the 01:00:27.651 --> 01:00:40.062 - heart, those of the soul. They are the joy far away from this earth made of water and clay. 01:00:44.898 --> 01:00:57.426 - going back home to the soul's ocean. There is no home here where we are but the remembrance of the sea, 01:00:57.426 --> 01:01:09.593 - a pearl separated from its shell. The death of the carnal soul is a blessing, allowing us once again 01:01:09.593 --> 01:01:13.086 - to be in union with eternity 01:01:14.114 --> 01:01:27.758 - the peaceful wave of God. The emptiness we fear provides us sustenance and abundance. The object of 01:01:27.758 --> 01:01:42.494 - desire is in truth a scorpion pit. The beautiful expanse around it is life giving. The attachment to belief 01:01:43.426 --> 01:01:55.413 - comforting habits and blood ties imprison us and make us afraid of living, thus depriving us of true 01:01:55.413 --> 01:02:07.755 - delight. While here, be patient with your body's longings and discomforts. Knowledge of mysteries which 01:02:07.755 --> 01:02:10.366 - illuminates the heart 01:02:11.458 --> 01:02:23.999 - comes after mind is emptied. Freedom comes with being free from self. Move across the sky as an anonymous 01:02:23.999 --> 01:02:35.949 - star. The power of hashish, heavy wine, and blessed sleep will not free you as well as drinking from 01:02:35.949 --> 01:02:39.262 - the presence of the spirit. 01:02:40.834 --> 01:02:53.173 - Therefore, choose carefully from the bouquets of freedom. Choose ecstasy unadulterated with urgency 01:02:53.173 --> 01:03:06.622 - of need. Beyond space and time is the invisible world. The wine of this fleeting world makes your head ache. 01:03:08.482 --> 01:03:20.230 - For it is a phantom giving you false signs. Shoot for the bull's eyes of bliss. Words and talk bring 01:03:20.230 --> 01:03:31.861 - you pain, which can be relieved only by resting in the arms of the beloved. Turn to love's peerless 01:03:31.861 --> 01:03:38.142 - cup instead. Your frame will wither, be old and dead, 01:03:38.978 --> 01:03:48.270 - yet your soul will keep the eternal youth. The bells of parting sound for those who hear, who long to 01:03:48.270 --> 01:03:57.563 - leave the momentary slumber for lands filled with heavenly tones, where friend meets friend in realms 01:03:57.563 --> 01:04:00.478 - of secret glow and sacred fire. 01:04:02.530 --> 01:04:12.738 - Here, water of the spirit too purifies and washes tears away, then filled with pollution not its own, 01:04:12.738 --> 01:04:23.145 - returns to the well divine, to the fountain where it is bathed to trail again its course of glory. Like 01:04:23.145 --> 01:04:29.150 - the king's arrow is pure heart, like lion in the mountains, 01:04:29.890 --> 01:04:43.447 - like wind sweeping us to heaven with which we'll never part. For there we'll laugh at the phantom grief 01:04:43.447 --> 01:04:58.046 - we suffered in the time of dreams. For there we shall behold the everlasting home. God here is invisible to us. 01:04:58.978 --> 01:05:11.371 - For darkness he knows not of this perishing land, of this home of Travaille where ignorance and folly 01:05:11.371 --> 01:05:23.643 - take us from palace to prison in a blink of an eye. And love is calling, ever calling for us in this 01:05:23.643 --> 01:05:28.382 - diamond space cross of a waiting room. 01:05:44.706 --> 01:06:01.653 - I have been honored to witness and feel everything that has come this way. And I just want everyone, 01:06:01.653 --> 01:06:14.238 - every what? Okay. These are kind of those things that happen when you just 01:06:46.530 --> 01:07:06.964 - Most of my family has fought for peace. And I guess men have been fighting for peace forever. My father 01:07:06.964 --> 01:07:14.430 - was a Marine in the Second World War. 01:07:17.314 --> 01:07:34.654 - He fought for peace. Oops, backwards, sorry. I had several uncles that fought for peace in the Korean War. 01:07:47.522 --> 01:08:05.577 - Vietnam veteran. I fought for peace, too. But men have been fighting for peace since the beginning of 01:08:05.577 --> 01:08:14.782 - time. Will there ever be an end? We may never know. 01:08:16.354 --> 01:08:26.865 - Maybe we won't find peace until we all die and go to heaven. I think that's where my final peace will 01:08:26.865 --> 01:08:37.272 - be in heaven. As I said, we will never know when peace will come, but I will always have peace in my 01:08:37.272 --> 01:08:39.230 - heart and my soul. 01:09:06.722 --> 01:09:15.730 - I just want to say that this has been more than anything I could ever imagined. I think the words have 01:09:15.730 --> 01:09:24.477 - impacted all of us. I think they have hit us, and we all have a lot of thought to sleep on tonight. 01:09:24.477 --> 01:09:33.223 - But I know that we're all here for one reason, and that is the compassion of peace. And I also want 01:09:33.223 --> 01:09:35.934 - everyone to know that there is 01:09:36.034 --> 01:09:45.846 - Also a movie downstairs. And it is definitely worth your time to watch. It is Soldiers of Peace. And 01:09:45.846 --> 01:09:56.145 - we also have a word from Dennis Kucinich. And it is powerful. And it was written to Bloomington, Indiana. 01:09:56.145 --> 01:10:05.374 - So to me, that is very huge. But before I, I just want to thank everyone that has shared their 01:10:05.538 --> 01:10:27.028 - passion for peace. Okay, we're gonna have two more songs. I have no idea who's singing them. All righty 01:10:27.028 --> 01:10:35.294 - then. Mitch, I like your singing. I do. 01:10:42.498 --> 01:10:51.001 - So without social justice, peace is sort of a dream. And so we have to work both towards social justice 01:10:51.001 --> 01:10:59.422 - and peace itself. We don't have that. The two have to go together. And this is a song written by Ralph 01:10:59.422 --> 01:11:07.761 - Chaplin, better known for writing Solidarity Forever. He was an IWW songwriter along with Joe Hill in 01:11:07.761 --> 01:11:12.094 - that same era in the early part of the 20th century. 01:11:12.770 --> 01:11:20.005 - I love Solidarity forever and it's a great rouser, but this one I like quite a bit too. It's called 01:11:20.005 --> 01:11:21.886 - the Commonwealth of Toil. 01:11:47.074 --> 01:11:55.856 - of mighty cities, amidst the roar of whirling wheels, we're toiling on like chattel slaves of old. And 01:11:55.856 --> 01:12:04.467 - our masters hope to keep us, ever thus beneath their heels, to turn our very lifeblood into gold. To 01:12:04.467 --> 01:12:13.078 - this good part here. But we have this glowing dream of how fair the world will seem when we each can 01:12:13.078 --> 01:12:15.806 - live our lives secure and free. 01:12:17.666 --> 01:12:27.297 - the earth is owned by labor and there's joy and peace for all in the Commonwealth of toil that is to 01:12:27.297 --> 01:12:37.213 - be. They would keep us cowed and beaten, cringing meekly at their feet. They'd stand between the worker 01:12:37.213 --> 01:12:46.558 - and his bread. Must we yield our lives up to them for this bitter crust we eat? Must we only hope 01:12:48.322 --> 01:12:58.309 - I know we have this glowing dream of how fair the world will seem when we each can live our lives secure 01:12:58.309 --> 01:13:08.011 - and free. When the earth is owned by labor, there's joy and peace for all in the commonwealth of toil 01:13:08.011 --> 01:13:09.438 - that is to be. 01:13:19.138 --> 01:13:28.381 - cause is all triumphant. We regain Mother Earth and the nightmare of the present fades away. We will 01:13:28.381 --> 01:13:37.716 - live with love and laughter. We who now are little worth will not regret this price we've had to pay. 01:13:37.716 --> 01:13:47.966 - But we have this glowing dream of how fair the world will seem when we each can live our lives secure and free. 01:13:49.986 --> 01:14:00.622 - And the earth is owned by labor. There's joy and peace for all in the commonwealth of toil that is to 01:14:00.622 --> 01:14:11.153 - be. All right. And one more little social justice song. Or let's call it environmental justice here. 01:14:11.153 --> 01:14:18.974 - And in honor of Tom and Sandra here who fought so long to save the forest. 01:14:19.522 --> 01:14:29.306 - of Southern Indiana. It's one of the few tunes that I can say, hey, I wrote this. Well, now the big 01:14:29.306 --> 01:14:39.090 - boys up in Indy, they like to spend our dough. When they drive down to Evansville, they feel, well, 01:14:39.090 --> 01:14:46.526 - that's too slow. So they want $3 billion. Going to save eight minutes time. 01:14:47.138 --> 01:14:59.284 - As we tear up southern Indiana, a land in its prime. We've been down this road before one too many times. 01:14:59.284 --> 01:15:11.202 - Paving over Mother Earth, it really is a crime. We don't need more semis roaring through our land. Back 01:15:11.202 --> 01:15:16.702 - down home in paradise here in southern Indiana. 01:15:17.730 --> 01:15:27.552 - They say we need this highway to trade with Mexico. You know, we'll trade off jobs and industry and 01:15:27.552 --> 01:15:37.866 - southward they will go. In the land of revolutions and cheap labor, they'll hide. So the average Hoosier 01:15:37.866 --> 01:15:45.822 - just gets taken for a ride. We've been down this road before one too many times. 01:15:46.434 --> 01:15:56.842 - Paving over Mother Earth, it really is a crime. You know, we don't need more semis roaring through our 01:15:56.842 --> 01:16:07.249 - land. Back down home, it's paradise here in southern Indiana. Highway 69, they say, it'll bring us all 01:16:07.249 --> 01:16:15.838 - great wealth. Breathing all those diesel fumes, well, it ain't good for your health. 01:16:16.258 --> 01:16:25.835 - While working at a truck stop is the best job you could find. You know the nation's better jobs and 01:16:25.835 --> 01:16:35.699 - days are now behind. It's sad. Hey, we've been down this road before one too many times. Hey, the over 01:16:35.699 --> 01:16:44.414 - mother earth, it really is a crime. Now we don't need more semis roaring through our land. 01:16:45.026 --> 01:16:56.268 - Back down home in paradise, southern Indiana. Now the Amish, they don't want it. It would tear their 01:16:56.268 --> 01:17:07.956 - farms in two. But the governors say, building this road it's going through. You know, we've got to stick 01:17:07.956 --> 01:17:14.078 - together to save our rural lands. We've got the power. 01:17:14.402 --> 01:17:25.697 - The future's in our hands. We've been down this road before one too many times. Paving over Mother Earth, 01:17:25.697 --> 01:17:36.779 - it really is a crime. You know, we don't need more semis roaring through our land. Back down home, it's 01:17:36.779 --> 01:17:39.550 - paradise, southern India. 01:17:47.394 --> 01:17:57.578 - Nah, you heard my story. You know what to do. Just call up the governor's state legislators too. Tell 01:17:57.578 --> 01:18:07.762 - them we don't need this road. It'll do no good. We know they can cut the pork now if they only would. 01:18:07.762 --> 01:18:13.054 - We've been down this road before one too many times. 01:18:13.794 --> 01:18:25.057 - Waving over Mother Earth, it really is a crime. We don't need more semis roaring through our land. Back 01:18:25.057 --> 01:18:29.822 - down home, it's paradise, southern Indiana.