Let Us Live in Peace!
Just think of what a good time we all could have,
how much of the world we could notice,
if we were happy to be who we are,
if we left each other in peace.
What could be more important than this life--
our days here on the earth?
What could be more important than the end
of this life toward which we all hurry?
What is ambition compared to death?
How can greed and the will to power
compete with our own dying?
Who needs war in this life?
We have pain and suffering enough.
Let us live. Let us live in peace.
In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.
~ Great Law
of the Iroquois Nation
The last lines of Chapter 81 of Lao Tzu's Tao Teh Ching say:
Their food is plain and good, and they enjoy eating it.
Their clothes are simple and beautiful.
Their homes secure.
They are happy in their ways.
Though they live within sight of their neighbors,
and their chickens and dogs call back and forth,
they leave each other in peace as they all grow old and die.
We want to live in peace. Let the people live.
Don't send us to an early death.
Don't kill us with your planes and bombs.
We want to live!
The teenaged Iraqi girl on the radio, who is speaking English, says:
"Why are you doing this? Why? We love America. We speak English!
What are you doing?" We love America. We speak English!
What are you doing?"
Let the people live! We want to live!
Martin Luther King, whose birthday we celebrate today, said:
"We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless,
for the victims of our nation and for those it calls enemy,
for no document from human hands can make these humans
any less our brothers and sisters."
Let the people live! We want to live!.
All we want to do is sit down and eat, rise up and dance,
lie down and make love, get together and sing, go for a walk,
feel the sun on our hands and faces, visit with our friends.
It's not time for war and all this killing.
Tomorrow we are bones and ash, the roots of weeds
poking through our skulls.
Today, food: plain and good, clothes: simple and beautiful.
Our homes secure, happy in our ways.
Let the people live! We want to live!
Don't send us to an early death.
Don't kill us with your planes and bombs.
Let the people live! We want to live!
Let the people live! Let us live! Let us live!
— David Budbill
Substantial portions of this talk/poem come from the text of the CD, SONGS FOR A SUFFERING WORLD: A PRAYER FOR PEACE, A PROTEST AGAINST WAR, with poet, David Budbill, bassist and multi-instrumentalist William Parker and drummer Hamid Drake, released on the Boxholder Records label.
Uni-verse
