The anti-war vigil at the Trenton War Memorial was run just like a Quaker meeting. (Photos here) As ninety of us sat on the warm steps waiting for the sun to set so we could light our candles, people stood to speak or read as they felt moved to do. There were prayers and poems. People read from Sandburg, Shakespeare and Shelley. The Shelley poem was, as you probably guessed, the BushCo signature piece, Ozymandias. The man who recited it did a particularly good job. He put a ton of emotion behind it and when he got to the end, he stressed "colossal wreck" in a way that really hung the poem's sentiment around Team BushCo's neck.
A woman who lost a son in the WTC on 9/11 spoke about her grief from that day, of course, but also about how she's suffering with every mother who is losing a child in a war wrongly and dishonestly fought in her son's name.
We sang. The leader pitched the march set for September 24th and that was it. It was a sad and beautiful evening.
I checked in on you earlier to see if you had put anything up yet, but this was my first chance to comment. Looks like a beautiful a setting. Unfortunately, the site we were at, at the top of Ch. Hill, isn't conducive to making speeches (lots of traffic and noise and nowhere very good for bystanders to listen). That part sounds like it was an inspiring element. Great pix, too, BTW.
Doesn't it feel like the ground is starting to tremble, just a little?
Posted by: Riggsveda | August 18, 2005 at 11:15 AM
Glad to see a nice turnout over in your neck of the woods. We had over 350 [according to the Inquirer] at our gathering in Washington square. The speakers couldn't be heard by anyone not right next to them though, a park isn't the best place, acoustically, for large gatherings without speakers/bullhorns.
Posted by: albert | August 18, 2005 at 12:25 PM