MY SILENCED SPRING /// Mary Louise Kiernan

MY SILENCED SPRING

///Mary Louise Kiernan

A Call to Mind: 1970-2020

Oh, when will they ever learn? ~ Pete Seeger

April 22, 1970

What do we want? / Clean air! On that first Earth Day, with my high school friends, I skipped down subway steps (Flushing’s Main Street station), the mission to save the nation from the General of Motors, who had yet to drum out loyalists to Rachel Carson’s warnings of future songless mornings. White surgical masks donned, our peacoats from the Army & Navy store buttoned down, up the stairwell we charged. We paraded past barricades out of line, giddy & fearless in our freedom to chant:

What do we want? / Clean air! When do we want it? / Now!

May 4, 1970

What do we want? / Peace! Bared bayoneted rifles aimed to halt our college students with civil rights to assemble. Without warning, Guardsmen of our Nation, who never intended to kill their fellow American citizens, randomly struck down protestors and passersby. Speakers against war sprawled on the ground felled by bullets. States away, in my parochial uniform, I disassembled. Too shattered to wield my will, too numb to cry out:

What did we want? / Peace. When did we want it? Then.