Lisa Guliani
The Living Force
Something I wrote 9 years ago, after gong to an anti-war protest at Penn State University.....
In the Name of Peace
By Lisa Guliani
Hundreds of college kids crowded 'round me the other day holding signs that said "We Don't Want Your War" ,
wearing torn white sheets as arm bands, a nice touch for the clicking cameras.
We'll "walk-out for peace" they said.
"We'll protest and march," they shouted.
"We'll sanction LIFE," they cried.
The media was there, microphones and video cameras cranked up to catch this 'national' news.
I was there too, sitting alone on a cold stone ledge at the Old Main building,
while behind me bodies and signs clogged the walkways and I was thinking a million thoughts
as someone pressed a blue button into my hand, "A symbol of the children who will die In Iraq," she said. "Wear it and keep a dead child next to your heart."
The crowd of 20-somethings standing behind me became a sea of faces
a wall of peace symbols and I felt a weird rush of emotion in my gut,
wondered how the world ever got so effed-up twisted and distorted in the first place -
wondered, when will it all end?
Kids laughing, high-fiving one another as they ditched class in the name of peace.
I looked up, felt the sky cry on my shoulder at times then the sun breathing its warm breath at others
as the rhetoric rushed from giant speakers droning, intense, roaring, words whipping us all with their fire and frenzy, words like mortar shells.
I could almost hear the sound of bodies dropping to the ground.
I don't think anyone else heard what I did, because they were busy giving themselves one more round of applause
just for being there.
and no one saw
the tears in my eyes
as it dawned on me
that nothing has changed
and the blind really do
lead the blind.
In the Name of Peace
By Lisa Guliani
Hundreds of college kids crowded 'round me the other day holding signs that said "We Don't Want Your War" ,
wearing torn white sheets as arm bands, a nice touch for the clicking cameras.
We'll "walk-out for peace" they said.
"We'll protest and march," they shouted.
"We'll sanction LIFE," they cried.
The media was there, microphones and video cameras cranked up to catch this 'national' news.
I was there too, sitting alone on a cold stone ledge at the Old Main building,
while behind me bodies and signs clogged the walkways and I was thinking a million thoughts
as someone pressed a blue button into my hand, "A symbol of the children who will die In Iraq," she said. "Wear it and keep a dead child next to your heart."
The crowd of 20-somethings standing behind me became a sea of faces
a wall of peace symbols and I felt a weird rush of emotion in my gut,
wondered how the world ever got so effed-up twisted and distorted in the first place -
wondered, when will it all end?
Kids laughing, high-fiving one another as they ditched class in the name of peace.
I looked up, felt the sky cry on my shoulder at times then the sun breathing its warm breath at others
as the rhetoric rushed from giant speakers droning, intense, roaring, words whipping us all with their fire and frenzy, words like mortar shells.
I could almost hear the sound of bodies dropping to the ground.
I don't think anyone else heard what I did, because they were busy giving themselves one more round of applause
just for being there.
and no one saw
the tears in my eyes
as it dawned on me
that nothing has changed
and the blind really do
lead the blind.
