TRIBUTARIES 2007: TO MY FRIENDS AT CITIZENS OF MADISON/ONEIDA FOR PEACE

Think you that we are strangers one to the other?
We're not. Both you and I arise from one Mother.
From her, toward private paths, we indeed twist and flow ,
Proud to sculpt a new bed; ever eager to grow.
We are like tributaries from the selfsame Source,
Thinking we're alone, pursuing our lonely course.
But look you! In this time and in this place
We converge; and as our beings join they interlace.
And somehow in that merging, we're forever changed,
Our future flowing forth forever rearranged.
That Source, I say, is our common humanity
From which we must never struggle to be free.

Yet, at this very moment, in places distant,
Other tributaries struggle to join us; insistent
On being part of our vibrant common stream,
Yet dammed, and damned, by violence obscene.
Such obstruction, by force and fear is cruel and wrong,
'Gainst the nature of tributaries to belong
At last to the common river of human life,
Where within one cataract there's no real strife.
Connected as we are, do we really have a choice?
So here and now we must speak with determined voice
For tributaries, converged in surges and swells,
And 'gainst soldier surges with a toll of death knells!

Sandra Miley