Notes About The Poem
When the band plays Hail to the Chief
They point the cannon at you
Creedence Clearwater Revival
Fighting For Peace
No matter how big the war
whether nation against nation or
two men in a bar, the result is the same:
loss.
In my lifetime nearly constant war, and even before.
And that is just those involving America.
A hundred years, another Hundred Years War!
Over what?
Some guy getting shot in Serbia?
A nation struggling to regain itself
after an unjust treaty?
Another fearing aggrandizement?
Another throwing off the yoke of serfdom?
And then that interminable series for control of oil?
Even between friends,
when disagreement escalates to argument,
what happens to kindness, patience, understanding?
A friend lost, possibly forever.
Is your life more peaceful following an argument,
won or lost?
Is your life more peaceful after the defeat of all
those nations falling to the power of another?
Is your life more peaceful than it was
ten, fifteen years ago?
Forget how it is for us oldsters looking back
fifty, sixty, seventy years or more.
I think not.
Many years ago a wise man said to me
that life was set up backwards, upside down:
rather than send our youngest to war,
the leaders of the countries involved,
not some surrogates,
should do battle on open ground.
Suppose they gave a war and no one came?
Collection: Attaining Peace
Written: May 2018
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