Sam Hamill | The Nation

Here The Nation presents a few of the works posted on "Poets Against the War," (www.poetsagainstthewar.org), the website set up by Sam Hamill, poet and editor, when he called for poems and statements against war in Iraq.

Just as I wonder

whether it's going to die,

the orchid blossoms

and I can't explain why it

moves my heart, why such pleasure

comes from one small bud

on a long spindly stem, one

blood red gold flower

opening at mid-summer,

tiny, perfect in its hour.

Even to white-

haired craggy poet, it's

purely erotic,

pistil and stamen, pollen,

dew of the world, a spoonful

of earth, and water.

Erotic because there's death

at the heart of birth,

drama in those old sunrise

prisms in wet cedar boughs,

deepest mystery

in washing evening dishes

or teasing my wife,

who grows, yes, more beautiful

because one of us will die.

Why must the noble rose
bristle before it blooms, and why

must the frost declare

allegiance to the dew?

Don't tell me the robin's

forlorn invitation

could not be denied.

I've heard the magpie's lies.

Outside my window,

twenty-seven juncos

consort in a cedar tree,

fat and happy to be free

of all desire--ah, but

that's not true! See

how they dance and turn

when I throw out the seed.