by George Capaccio

Imagine what life would be like
if everyone reacted the way I have.
The churches, mosques, and temples
would all be full from dawn to dusk
with people praying for guidance,
praying for light,
for a way out of this darkness,
an end to this slaughter,

praying for God to come through smoke and fire,
cries of the wounded and dying,
hatred and fear flowing like blood
on the battlefield,
to gather up all this horror in His radiant arms
and with one godlike breath
blow it out
that we might see each other again
as His children, one and all.

Shops would close
for who would feel like shopping
knowing their brothers and sisters
were being torn apart or incinerated
by god fearing pilots and gunners
taught to believe in the virtue of killing
and to see even women and children
as things in the way to peace.

No one would go to parties
for what would there be to celebrate
since the hospitals had been taken over
by ignorant grunts just doing their job
for God and country,
spreading the fever of democracy
by arresting doctors, evicting patients,
blocking convoys of food and first aid,
sniping at ambulances,
shooting wounded prisoners of war.

O if everyone felt as revolted as me,
as full of anguish, rage, and despair,
knowing a few good men in high places
had turned an entire country
into a free-fire zone,
had authorized their troops
to bring down the wrath of God
upon poor, defenseless people;
to set ancient cities ablaze
with liberty’s phosphorous torch;
to roll tanks with 50-caliber machine guns
over homes and markets
and the bodies of the dead–O
what a different world this would be.

There would be no dancing in the streets,
no Broadway razzle dazzle,
no twinkling Yuletide spirit
or cornball Santas.
If we could truly see what we have done,
the only present that would have any meaning
would be the gift of peace,
the gift of compassion to the people of Iraq.

Would we not fall on our knees
and ask their forgiveness
for our cruelty and cruelest of all,
our indifference
to all they have suffered,
all their children we have murdered,
all their widows we have made,
all their men we have abused,
humiliated, reduced
to embers.

Funny how the more we torture and kill,
and twist their lives to fit
a monstrous vision of society,
the further we fall from ourselves
and the grace God shed
not on America
but humanity.

If more folks felt the way I feel,
the only music would be the sound of feet,
millions and millions of feet
marching from sea to shining sea
in a continent-wide act of solidarity
with the people of Iraq.

The only song we’d hear
on the radio or in the streets
would be the song of all those marchers
gathering up their voices in one
concordant cry
for the people of Iraq.