A friend posted this poem elsewhere, and I thought you all might appreciate it:

WAGE PEACE
By Mary Oliver

Wage peace with your breath:

Breathe in firemen and rubble, breathe out whole buildings and flocks of red wing blackbirds.
Breathe in terrorists and breathe out sleeping children and freshly mown fields.

Breathe in confusion and breathe out maple trees.
Breathe in the fallen and breathe out lifelong friendships intact.

Wage peace with your listening: Hear sirens, pray loud.
Remember your tools: flower seeds, clothespins, clean rivers.

Make soup.
Play music,
learn the word thank you in three languages.
Learn to knit, and make a hat.

Think of chaos as dancing raspberries, imagine grief as the outbreath of beauty
or the gesture of fish. Swim for the other side.

Wage peace.

Never has the world seemed so fresh and precious.
Have a cup of tea and rejoice.
Act as if armistice has already arrived.
Don't wait another minute.

Thank you. (I'm breathing now.)

Talking peace here is of course preaching to the choir, and there are any number of moral reasons not to procede in attacking Iraq.
But there are practical and pragmatic reasons as well:

Bush is playing checkers. Saddam and Osama are playing chess.
Going into Iraq without the solid backing of the U.N. and without favorable world opinion behind us ,will without doubt open a Pandora's box that will be hard to close.
The case has not yet been made to go in. Iraq is not a direct threat to the USA, and boxed in as they are, it is doubtful they could be a direct threat to any other country in a direct way.As far as them being a threat via terrorism, that my be true. But to go into Iraq without proper justification will surely lead to more terrorists being recruited and more terrorism being committed on our soil.
Bush is being played like the dim-witted fool that he is.In a couple of short years he has screwed up the economy, brought us back to deficits, and now his ignorance and arrogance could threaten the planet itself.
Bush was supposed to be the "domestic issues" guy. September 11 changed that of course.
The big joke when he was elected was that he didn't know anything about foreign affairs, which he himself even played along with to a degree in laughing off his own shortcomings.I'm not laughing anymore, I wonder who is?

<center><FONT COLOR="#000080">--- Edited 1 times, lastly by Larry on Feb 14, 2003 ---</FONT></center>

Thank you, Wyld, for the poem. It's balm. Godspeed, and know that Blundervibes are with you today--our warrior for peace.

Oh, this one reminds me of those birth preperation classes... ahhh pheeeeeew....


But what a beuatiful poem indeed, thank you for sharing it <img src="http://www.arlo.net/ubb/smilies/smile.gif" width=15 height=15>

Wyld,
Thanks for sharing. I continue to admire you and your willingness to put yourself out there for wonderful causes. You're an inspiration--keep it up! <img src="http://www.arlo.net/ubb/smilies/peace.gif" width=16 height=16>

(And keep bringing us along with you)