Peace is defiant
Get ready for my bugle call
Day 17 of 30 Days of Poetry, Autumn 2024
Peace is defiant, rejecting burbling rhetoric, lathered promises that tomorrow’s gonna be BIGGER cleaner shinier. Peace sits mildly in the chaotic center strumming a chord of now, breathing the fecund air holding on to whatever's been thrown in its lap, (as well as any shadow can be held as the sun scoots crost the sky.) Peace stays as still as the earth it’s born from as cool as its core, as ready --
Today’s word is “defiant.”
I hope you love this song, Peace Call, as much as I do. It was written by Woody Guthrie around 1948 and was previously unrecorded until Eliza Gilkyson recorded it for her album Land of Milk and Honey, aided by friends Mary Chapin Carpenter, Patty Griffin, and Iris DeMent. I learned about it from my UU friends, Peter and Ellen, of course.
“If these war storms fill your heart
With a thousand kinds of worry,
Keep to my road of peace, you’ll never have to fear;
Keep in the sun and look around
In the face of peace and plenty;
Get ready for my bugle call of peace. “
“Peace Call”
— Woodie Guthrie