Before and after the weather report
we get news from far away places:
tragedies and terrible things
that want to linger in our minds
asking questions—but we don’t like
the answers that must be true
about the nature of humans opposed
to peace, that are driven to leave
horrible impressions behind.
We watch the cows come into water
in a well-spaced line, taking turns
at the trough, then count quail babies
herded on the lawn to escape the cat.
Within a wrinkle among so many others
on the durable hide of this planet,
we inhabit a canyon shaped
by the allocation of water
apart from the world outside.
drycrikjournal 
And lucky you…….
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We miss a lot of what goes on in the world, and can’t imagine a steady diet of its craziness without the common sense of the birds and animals around us.
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After the war, in 1948 my father took our family to the country and started a small farm. He had a desire to be apart from those terrible things that humans do to each other. In the end we all went back to living in the world but we have all carried some of that peace with us. I think this is my favourite of all your poems that I have read so far.
But we did have a good life. http://wp.me/p5rgVm-25
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To know that peace in the country was out there, and to make the necessary sacrifices to expose his family to it… your father was a wise man. Thinking of the millions of children who know no better, like cattle isolated in a feedlot, the search for sanity since WWII becomes more difficult everyday. Thanks, I’m glad the poem struck a chord with you.
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The thing about this strange blog world is that sometimes we strike chords on an old guitar that we thought had been broken.
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Yes, Sir, we do . . .
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Present tense indeed, we still carry it with us.
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And you are better where you are, drought or no drought. Better not to watch the news anymore these days.
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Such a sad state of affairs when the most outrageous headlines sell the most ads and the consumer just wants more.
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