Thinking of the Tao Te Ching After the ... War
Thinking of the Tao Te Ching After the Persian Gulf War
Lao Tzu, I think of you at the gates of Chou near Han Ku Pass, twenty-five hundred years ago, saddened by the citizens of your country, weary and without hope, writing down these words for the hopeful gatekeeper:
If you rejoice in victory, then you delight in killing:
If you delight in killing, you cannot fulfill yourself.
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When many people are being killed,
They should be mourned in heartfelt sorrow.
That is why victory must be observed like a funeral.
Lao Tzu, I am sorry to report that we are still waiting for the general to light the candles. We are still waiting for the victorious soldiers to carry the coffins of the enemy through the city gates. We have been praying for the dead when we should have been saving our prayers for the living. We have yet to learn how to celebrate victory. Coffin handles are still being carved from the hand bones of the dead.
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This is a page in a quite fine collection of poetry called After the Storm: Poems on the Persian Gulf War edited by Jay Meek and F.D. Reeve This one, is not so much a poem as a meditation by Thom Tammaro. Though he wrote it, along with others in the collection, following the Persian Gulf War — the one in 1990-91, not 2003-2011, in case you’ve lost track of all the wars— it of course can be recited for any of the wars that followed. Or preceded.