Forgive us Distant Wars
For bringing flowers home.²
When they bomb other people—we protest,
But not enough—we oppose them, but not enough:
We (forgive us) live Happily during the War.³
Another country Burns on our phones.⁴
Politicians overhead, their
Shadows wither the Flowers: their
Bombs & fires paint our Gardens red.⁵
Our mighty government wants to Help everyone,
Even if it must Kill them to do it!⁶
The sovereign nation-state has a very
Small brain with which to think—
But tremendously powerful Claws
To Destroy & Dismember.⁷
Shall we boast of Empire—
Where Time with Ruin sits commissioned?⁸
Who manufactures the bomb? Who pays the taxes?
Tell me, is that Blood upon our hands?⁹
Pour we in our Country’s
Purge each drop of us!¹⁰
¹ Carolyn Forché, Mourning
² Wisława Szymborska tr. Barańczak & Cavanagh, Under One Small Star
³ Ilya Kaminsky, We Lived Happily During the War
⁴ Ocean Vuong, Snow Theory
⁵ Arthur Rimbaud tr. Paul Schmidt, Partisan Wary Cry
⁶ Wendell Berry, Window Poems
⁷ Lala Har Dayal Mathur
⁸ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, A Song for the Ragged Schools of London
⁹ Pete Seeger, Last Train to Nuremburg
¹⁰ William Shakespeare, Macbeth