Stand up and be counted

You count how many peddlers
walk in a dusty pebbled road
under the scorching heat of the sun
arms outstretched
his own fate he could not command.

You count how many paupers
plunge into darkness
amidst daylight and
lose a thousand hopes
a thousand dreams
for even the right to hope
is no longer his own.

You count how many mothers
cry in anguish
in so much pain
for her right to caress her child
could never be the same.

You count how many lilies
open their petals not in springtime
You count how many wild birds
Singing tunes out of rhyme.

You count how many thousand lives
struggle for a piece of bread
in order to survive.
You count how many deaths have been offered
to give meaning to a wretched
meaningless life.

And yet it is when life is full of miseries
of anguish
of pain
of hunger
and of poverty
that each man and woman stands up
to give hope to a morbid sorrow
to give life to a dying promise
to give rhyme to a song and
to be counted.

Women Peacemakers

We women from distant lands
War, injustice, poverty and intolerance
Separated us from our loved ones
We fled, we crossed the seven seas
We sought refuge
We left our tormented countries behind
Hoping to find warmth and helping hand
A better place to find rest
Bitter memories we tend to forget
But like the rushing waves of the ocean
They keep on coming back.

The colors of our skin differ
Our religion is not the same
You are what you are
And I am what I am
Although I have not understood all this
Why for some being different really matters
What I know, we are women.

We give love, we build peace
While others make war
We know we cannot just close our eyes
There’s so much goodness in this world
A just and lasting peace is worth fighting for.

One day peace will come
Someday justice prevails
It will because we will make it happen
This is our undying promise
To make the difference
Women of peace
We must not pause, we must not be quiescent
Until our weary soul finds rest.


28 June 2003

Two Wars (and I just sit and watch)

Let there be love but no one listens, no one hears
Let there be peace, but no one cares, no one dares
Let there be war! Suddenly tanks rumble on,
Cluster bombs fall mortal targets hit young and old
And they claim they charge with surgical precision.
The Devil's Pact is broken, the ground trembles
"Shock and awe" the battle cry and why
I shiver with disbelief, brothers against brothers
From the fertile land of Mindanao
to the glowing desert of Baghdad.
Blood spatters, mangled bodies everywhere
Desperate, hallow cries of innocent people
But no one hears them in the wilderness
Their faint voices snuffed by drumfire of the raging war.
I see crimson fireballs as the night falls in Baghdad
I sit and watch until I hear another explosion in Mindanao
I see Mindanao through the night sky over Baghdad
Two wars thousands of miles apart
And I just sit and watch.

24 March 2003
(after watching CNN)