A Call to Arms

Do Not be Silent

In the Epic of Gilgamesh,
Gilgamesh becomes a shadow of himself
because he is dead.
It’s an old story. It’s one of the first poems
of the first writings ever discovered.

King Hammurabi—
according cuneiform clay tablets
excavated from Mesopotamia—
declared that the gods charged him, as king,
with defending the poor and defenseless.

The greatest irony of
ancient tablets burned, crushed, looted
in the war with Iraq
(the oldest known evidence of human writing,
stories, poems, biographies,
lives, mathematics, economics, everything
ancient civilizations knew, cared about)
the oldest writings were laws
beginning with punishment for those
who brought false accusations.

The only weapons of mass destruction
destroyed in Iraq
were words.
Voices have been silenced.
Learn from them.