Every year the world dies and comes alive again.
It makes a new year.
It renews itself over and over, again and again.

And in that circle around and around we all go and where we stop
we all know. Bending as all breaths bend toward the dead,
our flesh toward soil.

Tomorrow we are bones and ash, the roots of weeds poking
through our skulls. But Today is our life! Today we want to live!

Today we want to go for a walk under the cold sun. We want to go
skiing and snow shoeing, slidin' and tubin', and snowmachinin'.
We want to go ice fishing. We want to stand out here in the snow
and freeze our butts off so we can tell George Bush where to go.

It's not time for war. It's not time for war and killing.

It's time to come inside at the end of the day, take off
your snowy clothes and stand beside the woodstove
and drink tea and port, eat hot stew and warm bread.

It's not time for war and killing.

It's time to sit in the evening in the warm house and look at
seed catalogues and dream about spring, time to draw maps
of where the new apple trees and day lilies will go and think about
how many more blueberry plants you think you'll buy.

It's not time for war and killing.

It's time for life, it's time to make love, time to visit with friends.
It's time to play music and sing, sit down and eat, rise up and dance.
It's time for music and dancing.

It's not time for war and killing.

Presidents and Prime Ministers, Despots and Dictators,
Tyrants and Terrorists, We don't want to fight your wars.
We want to eat and love and dance.
We want to lie down and die in our own good time.

Let us die our own natural deaths, old and wizened,
crippled and suffering, but let us die our natural deaths.
Don't let us die from your bullets and bombs. Don't let us die
from your fire and poison gas. Let us die in the peace
of our own old age. Let us all grow old and die in peace.
Let us die in peace.

-----

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.
-----
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.
-----
Thousands of years ago in ancient China a boy emperor
ruled for awhile. The Imperial Court had placed the child
on the throne so that he could be a mouthpiece
for the Imperial Court's desires.

Coddled from birth, surrounded by servants and sycophants,
told by The Imperial Court that He was The Son of Heaven,
given to believe He had no obligation to anyone
but His Imperial Court, pampered and protected from any notion
of what the real world was like, from any idea of what The People
had to put up with every day,

The Emperor stomped and swaggered through the world
telling The People what to do, taking whatever He wanted,
robbing from the poor and giving to the rich, and sending
his armies out to terrorize whomever He took a notion to despise.

The Emperor ruled for a long time and thousands of The People died,
killed by His armies and because of His abuse and neglect.
But eventually, after great suffering, The People rose up
and crushed the man who called Himself The Son of Heaven.
And they crushed His Imperial Court as well.
- - - - -
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!

copyright © David Budbill 2003

# # # # #

Substantial portions of this talk/poem come from the text of the forthcoming 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, to be released on the Boxholder Records label in April 2003.