Claywoman's Lodgings - Eve Of Destruction

March 16, 2003

Claywoman

Tonight we teeter on the eve of destruction

Facing the abyss, following the lead of a madman.

How did we get here?

What are we going to tell our children tomorrow

When they ask why everyone is crying?

How do we explain that their father or brother

May never return home again?

How do we explain that somewhere

Little boys and girls are lying bleeding and cold

Because a bomb fell near their home and killed them instantly?

How do we explain the faces of those children who lived

Mangled beyond recognition as children who played like you did just yesterday?

How do we live with ourselves on the eve of destruction?

How can we sleep at night with a clear conscience

Knowing the bombs are falling on cities much like our own?

How do we go about our business

As if nothing untoward is happening?

How do we live with ourselves?

I sit here weeping for what inhumane acts are about to happen

For what? Oil? Greed? To bring our way of life to a country that has its own history?

How do we explain this to our children?

I hope beyond hope that this madness will stop,

That sanity will again reign in the minds of our leaders.

I pray that someone will stop this before it starts.

I applaud the countries that stand strong against this war

For they are the country’s with memories of the last war and the last killings.

How do we live on the eve of destruction?

We live in hope, in prayer, and from moment to moment.

But will that be enough?

J. Britton