THE PEACE TREE2...

As much as I hate to do this, Blogger has left me no choice but to create a new blog, same title, one minor difference in the address- http://thepeacetree2.blogspot.com/...

The limit of 2000 on "tags" is the culprit... since we have 2,848 posts!

Please bear with me while I, once again, transfer the template to the "new" blog.

Author invites are in the mail! Please change to the new address http://thepeacetree2.blogspot.com/ (links, etc) to accommodate and shine a light on the new, yet the same, blog.

Peace...

3 NEW ACTIONS to take on The Peace Tree's Activism Page...

Three New Actions and many others to take...

The Roadkill Prayer

For all animal lovers! Really! En route to work, a passing motorist holds a funeral for a squirrel hit by a car... the Roadkill Prayer.

So, I turned around and drove back. I parked. I got out and searched through the trunk, coming up with some cardboard and a plastic lid with which to move his body. As I moved toward his body, one squirrel was trying to move his body, little legs widespread, pushing the body toward the curb with great difficulty. I paused as a truck approached, put my hand up to indicate slow down, and waived the driver around. I turned back to the body. He, for he was clearly male, was dead. I was relieved for that much for his own sake and for mine, as I do not know what I would have done if he were still alive and suffering ever so slowly to death from crushed innards. His right-hand eye was popped clear out of its socket. His teeth were pushed clear forward nearly out of his mouth, blood beginning to dry on his lips. I stooped down and scooped his furry tan-and-black body onto the hard plastic lid using the piece of cardboard. I moved his body to the side of the road beneath a three evergreen trees.

I placed his body on the ground, resting his paws in his breast, and having no spade with which to dig, I did my best to cover his body with earth using the plastic lid which I’d used to move his body. And with one squirrel on the ground to my left observing, another nearby in a tree chattering, and the third to my right up another tree, I made the Sign of the Cross, paused with them for a moment of silence, and then raising my hands in the orans position, I chanted aloud a version of my “Roadkill Prayer”:

Blessed are you, O God of all creation, we give you thanks for the life of this squirrel, your creature. Now receive him into your eternal care where he might enjoy you forever according to his estate; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I closed with the Sign of the Cross. Yes, it all felt a little silly at near 8:00 AM on a workday morn. A man was mowing his law across the street. What must he have thought as I stood there praying with three very twitchy squirrels momentarily still? Another Bay Area freak?

But the gesture was profoundly right. I was changed. It is as if scales began to fall from my eyes just a bit. Who pauses to mourn a squirrel? To think anew about how we drive without care of our surrounds and those who inhabit them with us? There are countless millions of these pesky rodents. Yet, this squirrel was a fellow creature, a unique creation of flesh and blood whom God declared “good, indeed, very good.” He too is a subject of God’s care and concern in his own right irrespective of how he stands in relation to us human beings. God hears his “Holy, holy, holy” with our own, as the Psalmist reminds: “All thy works shall give thanks to thee, O Lord, and all thy saints shall bless thee!”

With thanks to Episcopal Cafe. Cross posted at Blazing Indiscretions.

SEEING INSIDE THE WOUND (The 8th Violent Verse)

What it is I've found in the course of this
I will tell you. I will. I will,
But there’s little comfort in knowing.
The awful and the good get beaten down
Like a snitch in the prison yard,
Fist upon fist, kick upon kick,
Pain upon goddamned pain.

How many of the living, the wounded,
The blameless and marked,
Should I expect to be wasted?
The abuser has cruelty like illumination,
They can see within it, yet know not its heart.
The abused have fear like darkness,
They can't see within it, yet know when it's upon them.

What I’ve found in the course of this
I will tell you. I will. I will,
But, like I said, there’s little comfort in it.

© 2009 mrp/thepoetryman

Read all the Violent Verses

DVAM

AFGHANISTAN'S SPIRALING POSE (Wednesday Head-Lines 9/7/09)

Poetryman Photomontage

Why Afghan surge is no sure thing
That we must penetrate at all the mad, sloping Hindu Kush,
Forgo what remains scattered all around; let pass
That within her jagging and spiraling pose;
There’s nothing left there that war cannot expose.

Obama seeks advice on Afghanistan
When words mean everything and nothing,
When advice is given through both sides of the mouth,
Our thick tongue upon the sky should be, “Get out”.

Afghan Taliban say they pose no threat to the West
This we know to be true, despite the ogre’s screeching spin.
And for this inane vortex we’ll die if we must
And win at all costs, despite the warnings of history.

Obama Meeting Advisers Amid Debate on Afghan Policy
The voices must be soothing. They must adhere to authority.
They must not be treasonous. “The Art of War” shall be drawn.
(The field manual for warring, 476-221 AD)
We’ve discovered it’s easier to teach war than craft peace.

Eighth Anniversary of the Afghanistan War
Troops still brave the sand and terrain,
Citizens still crushed in furious denial;
Eight years and the eyes still observe us.
Make a wish and detonate the candles.

© 2009 mrp/thepoetryman

Read More Head-Line Poetry

SHARING THE PAGE (The 7th Violent Verse)

Nothing paints our bodies
like the grief in pain.
It floats in the ribs.
It expands
In dread
Like a red violin
With a broken string.

She scrambles away on the air,
Exhaling notes already composed by another.
It is music gone mad.
It is anguish and ecstasy
Sharing the page
With misfortune.

She has climbed as high as she can.
Happiness brushes against her,
It is her acquittal,
Transitory;
Composer of this instant,
Her masterpiece.

© 2009 mrp/thepoetryman

Read all the Violent Verses

DVAM

The Truth about the Lies about ACORN

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Vincent Van Gogh Letters

At the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam tomorrow, HM the Queen will open (Dutch) a special exhibit of over 900 letters written to and from the artist Vincent van Gogh.

The letters project is result of 15 years of research by the Museum and the Huygens Institute of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences. They tell the fascinating story of Vincent and the close bond with his brother and confidant, Theo. After October 8, the English translation of the letters will be available on-line.