Contribute Your Vision of Peace

Statements from the 2001 Imagine Peace Conference:

Hazel Henderson 
Creating a Culture of Peace — Sharing Visions of Equitable, Sustainable Societies
I am honored to address this very important conference — which gets to the heart of creating a culture of peace.  I honor all of you — from so many spiritual traditions — who work so faithfully in organizing for the abolition of weapons and violent conflict and for your peace-building efforts... more. 

Ivonne A-Baki
Women Building a Culture of Peace
Here we are, trying to imagine peace in a women’s conference.  The title says it all:  we need to imagine peace, because unfortunately we do not have it yet.  Maybe womankind will succeed where mankind has failed... more.

Poetry: 

A Distant Peace in the Sixties for David 

By Sandra Nestlerode-Hale 

What happened to the young man I marched 
Beside in Washington that May Day? 
With lines of helmeted police covering the walks — 
Was that you? 
Remember we had no idea when they’d charge — 
When we’d collide. Spring promised new life 
Yet we throbbed to the threat 
Of pounding feet. 

May Day 1969, 
The Potomac glistened beyond the drive. 
Its watery lights measured our tide. 
We came to cry in a crowd. 
The city split in two: 
Those of us who locked elbows and cried, 
Hell no! We won’t go! 
And the silent police like statues in violent blue. 
Their beautiful horses trained to stomp and bite. 

Was that you beside me marching? 
Husband of my youth? 
Once you touched my hair with honest fingers, 
Your eyes steady. Cherry blossoms lay at our feet. 
I remember wanting only to love 
Just before the tear gas. 

Anger burned 
In our faces as friends were going to war, 
To a country we’d never learned in geography. 
We fought our fear by loving hard. 
My parents dead 
Yours pushed you out 
Doesn’t know what he wants, they said. 

That day, you, 
You cried in my quaking arms 
Thin feather-speckled things around you now 
Where once your parents’ wings had curled 
Was that you?
 
 

Write us at imagine_peace@att.net.