A Climate Lament
5:4 We have drunken our water for money; Our wood is sold unto us.
“Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem” (Rembrandt – 1630)
My brother and I stand like the fences
of abandoned farms, changed times
too loosely webbed against
deicide homicide
A really powerful blow
would bring us down like scarecrows.
Nature, knowing this, finding us mildly useful
indulging also
her backhanded love of freakishness
allows us to stand. ~~~ Daniel J. Berrigan
Just saw this Obit and felt an update appropriate:
“Our apologies, good friends,
for the fracture of good order,
the burning of paper instead of children,
the angering of the orderlies in the front parlor of the charnel house.
We could not, so help us God, do otherwise.
For we are sick at heart
Our hearts give us no rest for thinking of the Land of Burning Children …
We say: Killing is disorder
life and gentleness and community and unselfishness
is the only order we recognize …
How long must the world’s resources
be raped in the service of legalized murder?
When at what point will you say no to this war?
We have chosen to say
with the gift of our liberty
if necessary our lives:
the violence stops here
the death stops here
the suppression of the truth stops here
this war stops here …
And Chris Hedges reads an extraordinary passage in this interview.