Iraq Anniversary and a Birthday

 We went out to Ann's on the Vina Plains for a birthday celebration of Leslie today. The weather was wild and the spring wildflowers were glorying in the standing water.

 At home the world was drippy, growing fast and rejoicing in the spring time fervor of bloom.
I insert a stale and deadening note below-- it wasn't my war but I can't fail to mark it.. we tried to stop it.. we watched the shock and awe in horror and I won't be a stooge to revisionism now so here goes..

 

Another exit wound... the chill dark night of rebuke.. the soldiers get the honor it is said they deserve

America complains of gas prices

How about another deployment kids? You failed to bring down the gas prices...

Cities rot in razor wire and violence, kids have lost years, women have shrieked out their losses and men are used up or in the ground. Wherever war blooms life dies, humanity withers and fear takes out headlines. The lights go out, the museums are emptied, the animals are slaughtered, the fields are emptied, blood grows on pavements, bombs blister in garbage, children waste in bandages, mothers' sons are eaten for their own lunch. The craven calls out to the craven, the sane cling to what sustains them. Everyone swoons in the heat, the cold, the misery of their role. Nobody wins. Eventually it ends and the soldiers go home to something they don't feel part of and the vanquished or survivors or half-dead begin to rebuild. It's nothing to be proud of. Too much death, waste, cost and carnage for the word 'honor” to be applied for. Sorrow and regret. Shared responsibility and grief.

NEVER HONOR WAR. Honor Vets only when it is clear you do not honor “their war.”

 That's a poem I just wrote. Our Peace and Justice Center is doing a vigil to honor vets tonight on the anniversary of the US attack on Iraq (2003.) This was my response and I had no other friendly terrain but my fields of flowers to post it. It's tough to have an unpopular viewpoint so I sequester it here among the beauty of this day. Here's Les and Bob walking up for our Riparia meeting this evening. How lovely a place of peace is.