MANY A FALSE STEP IS MADE BY STANDING STILL
(slip found in a fortune cookie)
It's hard to read this tiny banner as words of the wise,
when the world wobbles
once more between war and peace,
and the unspeakable threat
of nuclear destruction is bandied about
by little boys scrapping in the schoolyard.
Here, the trees are standing still
in the forest, never moving from
the earth; their taproots find bedrock,
and grip tight. They don't rise up
against their neighbors. The wind
moves through their limbs
and leaves, birds nest for a season,
fly off. Oak gets along with Birch.
Hemlock coexists with Beech.
They don't fight about borders
and territories, who owns the best
part of the woodlot, the richest soil.
Right now, my head is throbbing,
and my heart, I'm afraid, is about
to be broken. Have we learned
nothing from history's bloody maps?
These small letters, stamped in red,
mock me with their inscrutable smugness.
— Barbara Crooker
Originally published at poetsagainstthewar.org
Thousands of feet
Below you
There is a small
Boy
Running from
Your bombs.
If he were
To show up
At your mother’s
House
On a green
Sea Island
Off the coast
Of Georgia
He’d be invited in
For dinner.
~ Alice Walker
Uni-verse
