The True Patriot by Ed Ciaccio

by Ed Ciaccio
Dandelion Salad
Featured Writer
February 6, 2012

Image by LianaAn, on Flickr

We’re really all in this together,
Every color, gender and age,
To help each other survive
The fierce storms which will soon rage.

Storms of money and climate and fear
Will threaten to drive us apart,
So we must always remember
Deep in both mind and heart

That true patriots see beyond borders
And calls to fight wars of hate,
Knowing flags may be powerful symbols,
But we all share a common fate.

And words such as “freedom” and “terror”
Are used to divide us through fear
By the powerful, so we’ll distrust and kill
Those who seem unlike us, far and near.

Our children will someday ask us
Why we found it so easy to kill
Anyone we were told was different.
Was it from ignorance, fear, or just thrill?

We owe them a future not blighted
By lies about “evil” and “defense.”
We owe them a future of promise
Built on harmony and common sense.

So we need to begin asking questions
Before the bombs fall and killing begins,
When appeals to flag and country
Cloud our judgment and absolve our sins.

Are our soldiers really protecting
Our country and freedom and rights,
Or merely brainwashed to believe that
By those who love power and might?

Are those who now serve in uniforms
Really the heroes we’re told,
Or just pawns in a cynical bloodsport
Rigged by the greedy and old?

Is spilling blood, and wasting treasure,
And raping our planet of birth
The best way to bring peace and justice
To people all over this earth?

It is time we all stopped listening
To those who would keep us apart,
And started, instead, to listen,
To what’s buried deep in our heart:

The knowledge that we need each other,
The wisdom that we must join hands
In true peace and compassion, together,
Regardless of flags or of lands.

---

Ed Ciaccio’s first book, Heartlines: Selected Personal Works 1966-2011, is now available at http://www.createspace.com/3722975 or www.amazon.com/.

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