Inscribed by author: "Mary, I'm glad to share these poems and stories with you. They are written out of a longing for peace. David, Sept. 2008"

David Smith-Ferri is a peace activist and Co-Coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence (www.vcnv.org) " I wrote about two thirds of these poems while in Iraq, after encounters with Iraqi people, in a wide-range of settings –– from hospitals to homes to bomb sites. The remaining poems have been written since, during the escalating terror and insanity of the current war and occupation."