how then?

as the current u.s. administration trumps the merits of 'the surge',

and presidential candidates debate exit strategy versus 'staying the course'

i think of them.
i think of their war-dead.
i think of our war-dead.
how then, do we fix this?
how then, do walk away from this?

after 5 years?

how could we ever? really?

and i know we all know,
even after our troops 'come home'

we will never be the same.
they will never be the same.
and i remember,

how imperative it is

especially now
to love

love
love like our lives, and their lives, and the future of our human race
depends on it.

loving, living, forgiving, acts of reconciliation, growing, stretching the limits of our understanding and acceptance, and embracing the 'other', looking beyond the knee-jerk reaction of fear for the unknown, the neighbor who seems different than what we know, because they are black, they are white, they are dark, they are light, they are devout, they are not, they are muslim or jewish or not citizens, or gay, or any of the other polarizing labels we tend to employ these days to keep building walls...all of this must change, if things are to change

if we are ever to truly win the war this generation, and
the whole of this world [whether engaged in conflict now, or not] is in

and that war we must win is a fight for what is fundamentally a universal, human right

the right to love
the right to hope
the right to a future

A four year old Iraq child cries as older boys stage a mock execution in Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, July 2, 2007. Children's games are under a heavy influence of ongoing violence in the country, one of the more popular ones being a clash between militias and police. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

Young Iraqi girl stands next to a bullet hole in the area where clashes erupted between the US military and the Mahdi Army militia, in the Shiite shrine city of Karbala, 27 July. Nine people were killed and several more were wounded during the clashes, security and hospital officials said.(AFP/Mohammed Sawaf)

Bodies of victims of violence are seen on the floor of a hospital morgue in Kirkuk, about 250 km (150 miles) north of Baghdad, April 1, 2007. Violence in Iraq killed 1,861 civilians in March, a 13 percent increase from the previous month and despite a major security crackdown in Baghdad, Iraqi government tallies showed on Sunday.REUTERS/Slahaldeen Rasheed (IRAQ)

THOSE WHOM WE DO NOT KNOW

"To feel the love of people whom we love is a fire that feeds our life. But to feel the affection that comes from those whom we do not know...is something still greater and more beautiful..."

-Pablo Neruda

1.

BECAUSE OUR country has entered

into war, we can have

no pleasant pauses anymore —

instead, the nervous turning

one side to another,

each corner crowded by the far

but utterly particular

voices of the dead,

trees, fish, children,

calling, calling,

wearing the colorful plastic shoes

so beloved in the Middle East,

bleeding from the skull,

the sweet hollow along the neck.

I forget why. It's been changed.

For whatever it was

we will crush the vendor

who stacked sesame rings

on a tray

inside the steady gaze

of stones.

He will lose his balance

after years of perfect balance.

Catch him! Inside every sleep

he keeps falling.

2.

I support all people on earth

who have bodies like and unlike my body,

skins and moles and old scars,

secret and public hair,

crooked toes. I support

those who have done nothing large,

sifter of lentils, sifter of wisdoms,

speak. If we have killed no one

in the name of anything bad or good,

may light feed our leafiest veins.

I support clothes in the wash-kettle,

a woman stirring and stirring

with stick, paddle, soaking out grime,

simple clothes the size of bodies

pinned to the sky.

3.

What we learned left us.

None of it held.

Now the words ignite.

Slogans knot around necks

till faces bulge.

Windows of sand, doorways,

sense of shifting

each time you blink —

that dune? Used to be

a house. And the desert

soaking up echoes —

those whom we did not know

think they know us now.

- naomi shihab nye -
from "19 varieties of gazelle"