Sometimes the absolute rationality of life seems so strange to me that the world we live in as people, seems alien.  In the last couple of weeks, I've been overwhelmed by the protests.  

Maybe it's because I live in a new world now, where social networking has brought images, thoughts and whispered prayers to me, personally, privately.  I can't help but try to imagine how different the world would be today had we not had to depend on mass-media for information during the Berlin Wall.  Tianamen.  9/11.  Iraq.  Katrina... 

Today, I hear the protesters in Tehran demanding their democratic rights.

Today, I hear the uprising of indigenous communities in Peru demanding their human rights from the world's most powerful corporations.

Yesterday, I saw examples of human power like these through a thick smoke screen, weeks, even years after the fact and I was left feeling powerless, weak and ashamed.

Today, I watch and my heart is no longer filled with sorrow, rather, joy and pride.  Because ordinary people are sharing what they see through their own eyes, what they feel in their guts and hearts, in broken English, through tears and cheers.  Because they are brave enough to share, I can stand in solidarity with them.  Maybe that seems naive, but I know it's brewing something.  And I know that I'm not the only one who is feeling it, nor the last privledged one who will feel it.  And I know that our solidarity, with each other, as humans and not objects of manipulation, is growing.  And the warmth that is created in each of our hearts when we listen to each other, is stronger than any combative force, militant or civilian.  It is peace.  It is energy moving from violence to righteousness.  I feel it growing and I am overjoyed.

I want to post a poem that I wrote that I have previously posted that is just so, so fitting right now.  

And I want to thank you, for coming to Musings, and reaching out by hearing me out.

I am a coward

I don’t understand

what it means to dream in Arabic

and rap in a foreign land

and the life and the love and the

strength

that powers on

through and again

that I see and I watch

through my three inch thick screen

wider than that you know

that keeps me in touch

but still out of reach

*** 

there’s a tongue filled with grouse

far, far away in a wooded retreat

where I can cry

into my vodka

wishing 

I was marching

through a funeral parade

a gas confrontation with

spears in the air

but somehow it doesn’t make sense

like my cowardice

my lowly retreat

is what everyone’s dying and

killing for

and it’s all a mistake

everything’s fine 

here

where hearts yearn to live

no battle 

no struggle 

no anger 

no hunger 

no matter what else

I float in my sleep

and dreams

they crawl all over me