Climb aboard;
all who wish an end to war are welcome;
we beg you to share our message of peace,
that it may reach across the wildest desert,
weave through cities, travel with the waves of the seas
that stroke our shores and soak into our sands.
Let it grow to encompass our nurturing planet;
let every peacemaker of every nation join hands,
and be embraced with love in return.
Let peace become a pandemic
the like of which we have never known.
My dad was a conscientious objector
who was imprisoned for refusing to kill other men;
for turning down the opportunity to shoot holes in their heads,
to plant land-mines and blow humans to shreds.
He missed the chance to charge into villages;
to burn, rape and pillage.
Despite the claimed cause of our the war,
his decision seemed reasonable to me.
I learned of his humanist history
while my mother held me on her knee,
and, although I had too limited a vocabulary
to arrange the feeling into a neat phrase,
I understood the irony;
had he killed a neighbour in self-defence,
rather than refusing to kill with indifference.
he might have received similar punishment.
When I was a kid, I did a lot of thinking about war; I figured it would be more sensible to select the two best chess players in the countries of enmity and let the winning nation take all. I wondered why it was considered that killing was necessary; It seemed inefficient to me.
I concluded that it must not have occurred to the world governments involved in greed and hate to take such a practical stance.
I planned to write to all heads of state and trusted that they would be grateful, and put my idea into practice.
Non of that happened, of course.
More recently, I had another brainwave; We peacemakers could infiltrate all the places where soldiers are trained for battle; from guerrilla hide-outs to army camps. We’d arm them with cheesecake and fruit and all that is good to eat. We’d teach them to smile and offer food while chatting about their families.
Chocolate guns would be a boon.
That plot fell flat when my best friend said the next war will not be fought by foot soldiers, so I’m joining in with a better plan;
my friends and I invite you to
climb aboard;
all who wish an end to war are welcome;
we beg you to share our message of peace,
that it may reach across the wildest desert,
weave through cities, travel with the waves of the seas
that stroke our shores and soak into our sands.
Let it grow to encompass our nurturing planet;
let every peacemaker of every nation join hands,
and be embraced with love in return.
Let peace become a pandemic
the like of which we have never known.
This was written for our peace campaign which was dreamed up by my amazing friend Paul Sunstone. Yep – remember the name; that man has greatness in him. We want the campaign to go viral. Share his post (see link below) and/or write a post of your own.
Click <<<<<<<HERE>>>>>> to find out more
and find even <<<<<<<MORE>>>>>>> <——— there
.
©Jane Paterson Basil
Yes!!!
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Are you coming out to play? 🙂
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I’m up and going Jane, and I’m reblogging this to start with.”Word Power”
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I KNEW I could rely on you, Ivor. Love you lots xxx
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I’m glad you love me, I copied your introduction and used it in my introduction for my poem . xxxx
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Reblogged this on Ivor.Plumber/Poet and commented:
Climb aboard my friends, a movement for peace, please read and forward on.
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Hi again Jane, I’m using your introduction here for my poem I’m posting shortly, I figure I could not have worded the introduction any betterer, so I just copied and pasted your words, xxxxx
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That’s fine. I often have trouble with intros xxxxx
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Your intro” was excellent. xx
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Thanks Ivor. I hoped it would grab attention.
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Ohh, Jane. YES Thank you!
“Let peace become a pandemic
the like of which we have never known.”
My heart sings, reading your words!
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Thank you! I’m going to dredge up a couple of poems I wrote last year, on the same subject. We need to somehow go beyond just preaching to the converted.
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Right on, Jane!
Thank you for sharing this! So powerful, poignant and timely.
(((HUGS))),
Carolyn
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Thank you for your enthusiastic response, Carolyn! xx
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Thanks, Jane. It’d hardly feel right without you on board.
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It would feel wrong to me, too. I have a couple of poems written last year. I’ll add them.
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Wonderful, love your ideas … sadly war is only about profit … google who profies most from war sales, that’s why they start wars and are now laying the propaganda to start another two … 😦
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and we’re all pawns in the game…
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you got it … appalling!
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Iran for sure I think. And god help us, North Korea maybe
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What we hear hear it maybe China, Iran and North Korea … no wins there!
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Great – let’s make it an express train. i will use my Steps for Peace to add to the momentum 🙂
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Yes please! Could you link one of Paul’s anti-war posts, pretty please…
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This one would be best, I think. https://cafephilos.blog/2018/08/12/against-the-next-war/
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Of course 🙂
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