This is another one of the calendar poems inspired by random, or not so random, coincidences of dates, usually discovered as I am in a mad scramble for a blog entry topic. It first appeared in 2013 when two events fell on the same day. Today, like most years, the astronomical event falls a day ahead to a proclaimed one, but the calendar serendipity is still close enough.
Tomorrow is the Autumnal Equinox and the first day of Fall in the Northern Hemisphere.
Today is the International Day of Peace as proclaimed by the United Nations every year since 1982. Since 2001 the date has been fixed to September 21 instead of the original third Tuesday of the month, which was also when the UN General Assembly begins its annual session.
Each observation has a theme. This year it is “End Racism, Build Peace.”
But peace is hardly the order of the day. The Russian War on Ukraine, the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War II drags on. Israel continues to lay waste to Gaza and it’s huge, trapped population while draconian enforcement and winked-at settler violence make daily life for Palestinians a nightmare; and the war has escalated on the northern boarder and in Lebanon and Syria and threatens to become a full scale regional war.
In the latest round of tit-for-tat escalations Hezbollah launched a major rocket attach on Northern Israel in revenge for two days of deadly pager and walkie-talkie explosions that killed scores and injured hundreds in Lebanon and Syria.
Half a dozen little wars and ethnic/civil strife percolate below public notice.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has set the Doomsday Clock to just 90 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been.
Among its grander visions, which must have seemed distant even to the founders of the Day of Peace, was a call for an annual one day cease fire of on-going hostilities. I can recall no armies ever standing down, but perhaps I missed something.
The rapid deterioration of the environment—melting ice caps, rising seas, hurricanes, heat waves, fires, droughts, and famine—also displaces millions creating international migration crisis, destabilizing governments, and creating conflict over scarce and vanishing resources—the perfect recipe for war and more war.
And here at home we seem teetering on the edge of Civil War.
No wonder this old piece is still relevant.
International Day of Peace/Autumnal Equinox Eve
September 21, 2013
The immanent equinox advertises itself
this morning with crack crisp air,
elderly maples beginning to rust at the crown,
a touch of gold on borer doomed ashes,
mums and marigolds,
hoodies up on dog walkers in shorts,
all under a prefect azure sky—
you know the one from the Sunday song
reminding “skies everywhere as blue as mine.”
The globe teeters on the edge of equanimity,
ready to balance for an instant between night and day,
seasons, yesterday and tomorrow,
a perilous, promising, moment.
The poor creatures swarming over its surface,
fancying ourselves somehow its masters,
alas, bereft of any balance….
From the Wishful Thinking File,
institutional division—
Festooned with doves and olive branches
brave words on blue banners,
a speech here, a lovely little vigil there,
an earnest strumming of guitars,
litanies sung, mantras chanted,
kind hearts and gentle people…
The creatures go about our brutal business,
blithely ignoring it all—
proclamation and equinox alike.
—Patrick Murfin
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