Through the midnight streets of Babylon

between the steel towers of their arsenals,

between the torture castles with no windows,

we race by barefoot, holding tight

our candles, trying to shield

the shivering flames, crying

“Sleepers Awake!”

hoping

the rhyme’s promise was true,

that we may return

from this place of terror

home to a calm dawn and

the work we had just begun.

Reprinted with permission from Transforming Terror: Remembering the Soul of the World, edited by Karin Lofthus Carrington and Susan Griffin, a collection of writings offering a new paradigm for moving the world beyond violence being the first, and often only, response to violence.  The associated website will grow as a resource in coming years; the book may be purchased here.