Women's Voices Against War

Annie Guthrie

What is a guest

a wish

makes a guest of wisher

a shell makes a guest of the listener

a breath the host of sounds we make, living

soundly.

In sea's crash and crest there is no lack

no sonic, shapely sense

of accident, or violation. No thing

kept.

not a trace of the driftless makes time

Sticks inside themselves hold sundials

not telling anything

Let us drown our own take

on our own immediacy:

without echo and temper, the speech differs.

Once, our leader were in the crib

winds powers sands cradles dread

There was always fear

It is an occasion, then

when fair proud figures kiss.

The sea of years unfolds will

equally, in all heads,

dying.

In the lastness of the hours, no journals

will be reviewed. Gestures, not failures, viewed.

there is a shore to willing

 in principle a thing living, moves

Against its limitation.

Fear, looming

makes men its mirror, holding them still.

A surface will

punctures.

A surface of history and evidence will puncture.

Politics collect themselves in hours, years, lands -

a voiced graffiti.

Believe in nothing collecting.

In the lateness of hours

no improvisatoin of sun

setting, no deals made in its rising

Commonly sea

takes its place

as we would, guests

as we would, waving