A Life in Wars

I have suddenly realized (at age 80) that my life encompasses multiple wars.


• ages 0-7: World War II.

• ages 12 to 13: Korean War

• ages 28-37 : Vietnam War

• ages 65-80: Iraq/Afghanistan Wars


What effect has this had on me?  I hate war.  I have personally known people who have been forever negatively affected by their experience in wars.  I have not personally been involved in fighting wars.  I know that to secure U.S. hegemony these wars have been conducted.  I also know that for as long as the U.S. empire survives, wars (physical and/or cyber) will be executed in the name of this empire, and that fact will condition how the people of the U.S. perceive their country.

If this were an absurdist play, we could all leave the theatre assured of the rightness of our lives.  But this is not an absurdist play.  This is our lives and the lives of our progeny.  What effects will we and  they endure?

A Mending Poem for Our Angst

MAYFLOWER CISTERN I FEEL MY PILGRIM WORRY

All day long I feel my pilgrim

worry.  Crude and unforgiving

as the buckle on my boots.  I mark

the boundaries of the town

and then I build a fence.  I build

a pillory and scaffold.  I bring

my gun into the forests.

And my axe.  Inside me.  I hurl

my brittle body at the pines.

I have a plan for them.  A way

to make them useful, which

is God’s compact with the world.

Whatever does not welcome

me I tear asunder.  Whatever

welcomes me was mine to

sack and bring to my knees.

I give the gift of my hunger

to everyone.  And then

I build a fence.  The does

Is certainly a sorceress.

The sparrow was the woman

smiling into the mirror

of the well.  What will I make

of this country?  Inside me,

My pilgrim huddles in the corner

of my heart.  Which I hate

for its hopeful sounding.

Its unwillingness to know

the truth of how broken

and beyond salvation is.

                        Gabrielle Calvocoressi

(published in The New Yorker, July 23, 2018, p.41)