This poem was written some months later.
That news, of course, wasn't revealed to the public
until September, although the war
was supposed to have ended at the end of March.
And that had happened in March, but we
didn't get to read about it until September.
And as I said in a footnote, an endnote,
to the best of my knowledge, it was not followed up
and seems to have gone virtually unnoticed in the national media
and the national consciousness.
I mean, during the Vietnam War, at least the My Lai Massacre
caused widespread outrage.
But this just rippled off into nowhere.
This poem is written while I was getting
a lot of reports through Ramsey Clark's reports
and from other sources about the effect on Iraqi children
particularly of the embargo.
There were no medical supplies, no milk, no clean water,
et cetera, et cetera after the bombings.
That was in the late summer and fall of the same year.
And I had spent the entire actual Gulf War in California
because that's when I teach at Stanford, the first three
months of each year, and this poem
is written then looking back to those three months,
it's called "In California during the Gulf War."
"Among the blight killed eucalypts,
among trees and bushes rusted by Christmas frosts, the yards,
and hillsides exhausted by five years of drought,
certain airy white blossoms punctually re-appeared
and dense clusters of pale pink, dark pink,
a delicate abundance.
They seemed like guests arriving joyfully on the accustomed
festival day, unaware of the year's events,
not perceiving the sackcloth others were wearing.
To some of us, the dejected landscape
consorted well with our shame and bitterness.
Sky's ever blue, daily sunshine disgusted us
like smile buttons.
Yet the blossoms clinging to thin branches
more lightly than birds alert for flight,
lifted the sunken heart even against its will.
But not as symbols of hope.
They were flimsy as our resistance
to the crimes committed again again in our name.
And yes, they return year after year,
and yes, they briefly shone with serene joy
over against the dark glare of evil days.
They are, and their presence is quietness ineffable,
and the bombings are, were, no doubt will be that quiet,
that huge cacophony, simultaneous.
No promise was being accorded.
The blossoms were not doves.
There was no rainbow, and when it was claimed,
the war had ended, it had not ended."
And I said that about the effects of children in Iraq--
of the embargo-- because that's what I was talking about when
I--
one of the things I was doing but at least, when
I ended that poem by saying and when
it was claimed the war had ended, it had not ended.