Month: June 2026

Peace Lives On

Peace lives on

In the hearts of many, not in any of the bombed out churches, cratered schools, or in the souls of heartless presidents or mindless loyalists,

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Not on Earth, not in internets, or in fishnets robbing dolphins, seals, eels, and whales along with tuna of their lives; all so we may thrive as an apex species doomed to die for all our sins against the world

Peace lives on, but it isn’t seen except in playful scenes of children, laughing in their thoughts, creating dreams; without the cares of mothers or of fathers, who cannot bear to let them worry while the world goes up in flames

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It isn’t peace, but peace lives on in hope; a daughter listening in the dark, celebrating when the bomb lands elsewhere, and all she hears is the booms of thunder, the dooms of other sisters or their brothers, just not on her.

I wonder if the booms of bombs have the same rule as lightning strikes? Does the flash lighting up the sky follow thunder cracks like lightning storms? Flash, one one thousand, two one thousand, three. Are those bombs three miles away? A bomb that booms is never heard by those on whom it lands, do such lives go “bombs away!”?

They say that peace will come on Friday in Iran and maybe Lebanon

They say that oil will flow once more through the Strait

They say it’s all signed and certain, Will the children of Minab finally breath a sigh of relief?

Peace lives on, eternally as the children rest, a slumber deep because it’s death

Does peace live on in sick fathers on the edge of graves in concentration camps called detention centers, starving willfully as their wives and daughters wait hopefully in the dark with strangers for a compassion that should come and finally saves?

Will peace live on in the morning when we wake? Will it live long enough as we sleep perchance to dream of it? So we can find it once again inside our minds and still our hearts for one more time

To try and bring it to the world?

Who knows what darkness lurks within unfolding shadows

Are those shadows like a night in dark and gloom, the smoke that covers lands after bombs have boomed?

Or is it the shade of justice striding forth, the sillouettes of women finally angry marching through to still the hearts of rage and hatred, to fill the air with cries of love, celebrated into being?

Peace lives on with Hope in mind, it comes to life, leaves the pain and strife behind.

Peace lives on

As long as we do

Peace lives on.

As Hope

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The lives of ordinary people

“Big history runs through the lives of ordinary people” (Shiyavash Shahabi, exile of Iran)

We don’t see it most of the time

We run from it if we can

We’re unsuccessful

Except inside our minds

It’s why we find a way to keep resisting

Playing, with rocks, with words, insisting, keeping, or at least trying to keep each other free

The dog days aren’t over, it’s never been done, we can’t hide, so I suggest we not run

So some of us need to be absurd, some of us have to take the chance, to risk our lives by being foolish, we cannot run,

We’re ordinary people, living ordinary lives, extraordinarily

So let’s dance

It was an anthem of resistance, back in 2011, when we thought our only care was for the other fighting in the distance

To overcome a dictator or the several many, we thought so far away

We didn’t think the brink would choose us, bad ideas in the absence of better ones have a way of gaining sway.

I often wonder how the obvious is so difficult to see

I’m not speaking of the cruelty and corruption, only blindness and stupidity would choose to ignore it

No, it’s the reticence to mobilize and stand up to power, with our bodies, to force a change and not think that change can come with our desire to follow rules, to take a road that is dismantled and call it a high one, to be above the fray, rely on justice when justice is in such disarray, when the freedoms we hold self-evident no longer seem in play

I wonder why I need to hold that conversation? Why should I be the one with answers, be the one to make things happen? Be the one to not give up, to not give in, to accept the gross mistakes of judgement that seem so obvious to see? To let all those errors leading to our common misery play out in the vain hope that “we” will eventually learn from them?

And, I’m sorry this seems so plain to me, so uncomplicated; why I see that those who choose to fight, choose the least effective way? And those of us who see it clearly have to wait for time and experience for all the rest to catch up?

It’s far too late, far too many who have born the death and pain, far too few to catch on to what it is we need to do. We’ve really waited long enough.

And yet, there is no real choice. We can’t change the world without the world to be in on it. I can’t run away, even if you don’t wish to follow.

I can’t run away, it’s my dark side that can’t dissipate, I remain wishing, hoping.

Even in a losing battle, even when love seems to die. I can’t run away.

Except to let you find your way

It’s the way of ordinary people, living ordinary lives extraordinarily

The way of all of us who wished for something great

And in the end, all they wished for the pain, the hurt, the uncertainty to end