this diary is dedicated to all who suffer because of war

we love and support our troops, just as we love and support the Iraqi people – without exception, or precondition, or judgment

we have no sympathy for the devil

we acknowledge the power to act that is in us

images and poem below the fold

Cayetana G. Palacios cries as her son, U.S. Army Corporal Eric G. Palacios-Rivera, of Atlantic City, N.J., is posthumously recognized with the Drum Major for Community Service award, during the New Jersey Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Commission’s annual King Holiday Celebration, Sunday, Jan. 14, 2007, at the War Memorial in Trenton, N.J. Palacios-Rivera was killed in action in Iraq on Nov. 14, 2006. He is pictured on his mother’s shirt.
(AP Photo/David Gard)

from Mass for the Day of St. Thomas Didymus
by Denise Levertov

ii  Gloria

Praise the wet snow
        falling early.
Praise the shadow
        my neighbor’s chimney casts on the tile roof
even this gray October day that should, they say,
have been golden.
                Praise
the invisible sun burning beyond
     the white cold sky, giving us
light and the chimney’s shadow.
Praise
god or the gods, the unknown,
that which imagined us, which stays
our hand,
our murderous hand,
                   and gives us
still,
in the shadow of death,
            our daily life,
            and the dream still
of goodwill, of peace on earth.
Praise
flow and change, night and
the pulse of day.