Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Author: Paul Willis

  • Walking on Water, Pyramid Lake

    Walking on Water, Pyramid Lake

    These particular bugs can do it,
    dimpling the surface with their feet,
    and no one has built a church in their name.

    Other bugs swim underwater with abandon,
    with no blue ribbons to show for it.
    That leaves the rest of us to perform
    our daily miracles without applause.

    This rock, for example, sheared flat
    by who knows what torturous force,
    left to host its lime-green share

    of crustose lichen, that concoction
    of algae and fungi which long ago,
    not even listening to Rodney King,
    decided we can get along if we just try.

    —Ross Lake National Recreation Area

  • Cease-Fire

    In Sarajevo, the air seemed immensely blue,
    even at night.  Shells no longer channeled
    the sky, and children played at hide-and-seek


    from dawn to dark among the crosses.  Snow
    began to melt in the market.  There were flowers
    for sale, staining the tables and pavement


    crimson, blood of earth returned to blossom,
    martyrs crying out anew in the language
    of fragrance, “Peace, peace.”

  • ROTC 1974

    The day that I wore red white & blue
    boxer shorts to morning drill,
    Major Winslow rushed into my face
    with a clipboard.  “Your name, cadet!”


    It was winter, and my legs shone pale
    in regulation black shoes and black socks. 
    “Hanger,” I told him.  “Cliff Hanger.”
    He wrote it down as if his pen
    were assassinating each false letter,
    and then he dismissed me,
    me and my troop of followers
    in pink shirts and bow ties.


    That night, a Texas boy from across the hall
    came through my door and slid
    his arm around my shoulders.
    “You know,” he said, “men have died
    in that uniform.”  “You know,” I said,
    “more men have died in their boxer shorts.”