... an american thanksgiving ...

THANK YOU! to my indonesian neighbors!

. . . veteran aWARe . . .

*** this for those who are veterans of our wars ... including who are veterans in the non-violent struggle for peace ... the violence of war affects us all ... and this is for those who serve to bring peace which ever way they were called.

so many veterans walk our streets
most of them looking for something to eat
lost is the innocence of humanity's shine
mired in the place where confusion confines.

giving a sacrifice to the lie that replaced
the truth of equality of all men under god's grace
fighting for freedom yet with so little to be found
when the heart and the mind are far from sound.

so many lives and hearts torn apart
from choosing to give their life from the start
a mother's young child lost in the storm
of a politican's agenda that angers the swarm.

changing the lives of humans one by one
until we can see that violence is really done
brother against brother, man against man
in the brotherhood of love we must claim we can.

so that this day will one day be only for ghosts of the past
and not for those who pray for their lives to last
through the night where the bombs bursting in air
and our violent ways a distant memory we work to repair.

living each day to remember those that served
for the principles we breach with the death of our nerve
to ask for the sacrifice of any one life
in the quest for peace in the midst of the strife.

finding it all in the bombs and the guns
only violence that makes our hearts and minds run
to places where darkness in turn will reveal
it is in peace, tolerance and love is how we will heal.

peace & harmony,
elaine
'freedom must be exercised to stay in shape!'