Without poetry , there would be no prayers to say over the dead.

Without poetry there would be no love to coax lonely souls to union,

no passion to wrestle life from Nothingness;

no mother to protect the helpless seeds of Humanity,

no children to teach us mercy, and no soul to yearn.

Without poetry, soldiers and sailors would have no home to return to,

no markers for their graves.

Hate.

Hate is simple: it is a parent who eats its young.

Hate takes many forms and war is the grandest of all.

But war isn’t always hateful. Sometimes it is as naturally inevitable as a thunderstorm.

When war comes, meet it with humility and shame, if you must meet it at all.

And win.

But remember this: Protesting against a war is the only way humanity can save itself from killing istelf.

What would the world be like if no one protested against war, if no one questioned the “right” or “need” to kill another human being (regardless of how crazed that other human may be)?

The anti-war protestor is man’s best part struggling against the worst in himself. The pacifist is the mirrored image of the warrior. Without the warrior, humankind would be unable to protect itself. Without the pacifist, humankind would be unable to stop itself.

The protest against hate, war, and death is the kernel of conscience we have that will save us from extinction.

Without protest against war, there will never be any reason to stop war. We would all die from the hate that lurks just beneath this thin-skinned facade we call civilization were it not for the pacifist.

If we must fight wars, make sure they are fought against the worst in ourselves.

Without protest, the flower buried beneath the rock would never find the poetry of the sun; the seed of hope would forever be crushed under the heel of Hate’s eternally marching boots.