This is the day when love
becomes the currency, minted
in coins and bills and bonds.
Imagine it: love, the currency,
forged in the mold of lifelong friends.
This is the day when peace
comes, when arms dealers
stop building guns and tanks,
melt steel instead into soup pots
and bicycles, leave them
on street corners for everyone.
This is the day when physicists
who designed “smart” bombs, build
hands instead for the paralyzed.
When military bases around the world
close down, and schools that teach peace
replace them. This is the day
when leaders put away their
speeches, transform their push
for power, go home to play on
the floor with their children.
This is the day when bread and fruit
fill plates in every home. When
all people, at last, are equal,
with banks of love to back them.
—From Making of a Matriot, Red Hen Press (2003), 77; reprinted here by
author’s permission
Notice: Photograph is protected by international copyright law.
“Whose Army, Whose Children” by Kira Carrillo
Corser
(Reproduced here by permission)
|
Photograph by
Tey Roberts
|
is the author of five books: two poetry collections, Making
of a Matriot (Red Hen Press) and Raising The Tents (Calyx Books); and three
collaborative books and exhibitions with photographer Kira Carrillo
Corser that have shown in galleries and state capitol buildings across the country, and
in the U.S. Senate in Washington, D.C.
Adler also co-edited, with Debra Busman and Diana Garcia, Fire and Ink: An Anthology
of Social Action Writing (University of Arizona Press), which won the 2009 ForeWord
Book of the Year Award for Anthologies.
The poems, “Camera” and “Battle,” are from Adler’s current
work-in-progress, “Dare I Call You Cousin,” about the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, in collaboration with Israeli artists,
photographer Michal Fattal and videographer Yossi Yacov. “Evolution” is
from Making of a Matriot.
Adler, professor emerita and founder of the Creative Writing and Social Action Program
at California State University Monterey Bay, lives in Portland, Oregon.
Award-winning photographic artist, writer, and video producer, Kira Carillo Corser has
collaborated with poet Fran Adler in four major traveling exhibitions and three books:
- When the Bough Breaks: Pregnancy and the Legacy of Addiction
- A Matriot’s Dream: Health Care for All
- Struggle to be Borne
Her projects have exhibited nationally in art galleries, museums, and universities; and
her work has been part of Public Broadcasting programs, and has appeared on CNN and NBC.
Additional biographical details
For more about the Corser/Adler collaborations, please see:
Exhibits.