Dear Poems People,

Today's offering I dedicate to Poems Person Peg McIntire and all Grandmothers for Peace (of which I'm an honorary member).

Actually, Peg's chapter is Grandparents for Peace, since Peg likes men. Peg's our beloved 97 year old indefatigable European American Peace activist and union organizer dwelling in St. Augustine, FL, just south of Jacksonville. Peg's brother, Jo, fought and died in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in Spain. In the 1980's, Peg was driving us back from a Southern Life Community gathering (folks in the Southeast US who say no! to nuclear weapons and, especially, the nearby Trident submarines and missiles at Kings Bay, St. Marys, GA), and I sang to her: "I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night, alive as you or me...." A special time. If you participate in the annual School of the Americas Watch demonstrations, you've heard Peg speak.

In the Struggle,
Wendiferous


"Weary of Weeping"
by Pearl Tilton

I am weary of weeping.
I am tired of weeping for young men and women
Cut down before they have fulfilled their life's promise.
In World War II, I wept for brothers and classmates and neighbors.
In Korea, I wept for nephews and the husbands and sweethearts of younger women.
In Vietnam, I wept for contemporaries of my son.
Between wars I have wept for civil rights workers who laid their lives on the line
For their ideals and were trampled and reviled by the ignorant dupes of the demagogues.
I have wept for the Kennedys and for the Kings and for the fear and hate and ignorance that brought them down.
Today, I weep for the world's leaders and followers who will not acknowledge that peace and good-will are superior to war and violence.
I am growing old and weary of weeping.