GIVE PEACE A CHANCE

“Green, it’s green,” I shouted at the taxi driver when the downtown traffic began honking

In rage behind us. I remember the

Velvet layer of reflected light on the dark street shift from red to green; I remember his

Eyes in the rearview mirror.

“Please,” he said, and at first I thought he was asking me to get out of the cab. An

Eternity, or a moment later, I heard the announcement on the radio

And understood.

Chapman was the name we’d read in the papers the next day; he’d stalked them at the Dakota.

Eventually, of course, they

Arrived home.

Catastrophe was something we’d grown accustomed to, but this

Horrible night, this horrible news, seemed to portend some new thing. They’d made  

A direct appeal to common sense, a seemingly naïve request. A chance—

No one would dare say it today without irony, without scare quotes drawn in the air. A

“Chance”—does anyone still believe that we have a chance to give, to anything?

Each time I think of it, I marvel that we once found this plausible, and self-evident, and wise.



Andrea Scrima, 6.9.2022

Give Peace A Chance_Akrostichon for peace:

Andrea Scrima_Schriftstellerin, Künstlerin

https://andreascrima.com/

Foto_privat

Walter Pobaschnig _ 6.9.2022.

https://literaturoutdoors.com