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Last month, we posted an open letter from Maxwell Corydon Wheat, Jr., a poet of the peace community, who asked that President Obama read poetry before any discussions of military strategy. Max believes that this would help impress upon leaders the cost of war, and lead us towards peace.
In sharing Max’s thoughts, a friend from New Paltz, Margaret Human, shared her concern with what can happen with war and poetry.
The post with Max’s thoughts is: here.
Maragaret’s e-mail, and her peace poem, are below.
Margaret wrote:
too many poems out there praising war. easy to stir up herd instincts and ancient responses to honor and the other tribe as enemy with stirring words. music too.
I just had my peace poem published in our local paper. ARTS 4 PEACE publishes one every month, a contest…written to order during the Spring [03?] “victory” in Iraq…
Green blessings-margaret human
From: Margaret L. Human
Subject: peace poem
To: “Kimberly Wilder”
Date: Friday, November 20, 2009, 8:07 AM
Arma Virumque Cano*
Peace and the people I sing, and the arts of accommodation:
Ears that can listen and hear, throats that can voice compromise,
Hands that can gracefully share just portion with every nation,
Hearts that forgive and repair woundings both given and taken.
Honor to makers of peace and honor to those who demand it:
The people uniting to take the power back from the war makers.
All these have a glory beyond that for the foreign adventure.
The songs of peacemakers shall live longer than triumphal arches,
Their tunes lilting sweet in the heart long after the words are forgotten.
Margaret Human
New Paltz. NY
* First line of Virgil’s Aeneid, sometimes translated as “Arms and the man I sing.”
Filed under: Barack Obama, Favorite Muses, local, long island, nonviolence, Peace, poetry, politics, president, presidential, progressive politics, war Tagged: | Long Island Poetry, Margaret Human, Max Wheat, Maxwell Wheat, military, peace poetry, poetry
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