Wage peace with your breath.
Breathe in firemen and rubble,
breathe out whole buildings
and flocks of redwing blackbirds.
Breathe in terrorists and breathe out sleeping children
and freshly mown fields.
Breathe in confusion and breathe out maple trees.
Breathe in the fallen
and breathe out lifelong friendships intact.
Wage peace with your listening:
hearing sirens, pray loud.
Remember your tools:
flower seeds, clothes pins, clean rivers.
Make soup.
Play music, learn the word for thank you in three languages.
Learn to knit, and make a hat.
Think of chaos as dancing raspberries,
imagine grief as the outbreath of beauty
or the gesture of fish.
Swim for the other side.
Wage peace.
Never has the world seemed so fresh and precious.
have a cup of tea and rejoice.
Act as if armistice has already arrived.
Celebrate today.
Judyth Hill
3 comments:
I love sharing your poetry, being here and being inspired by you there. Thanks.
This poem took my breath away. We live 25 miles from New York City, and on 9/11 we wree all quite literally breathing in others' lives. What we managed to breathe out was kindness, consideration, care of our neighbors and strangers alike. There was a unity and peace and shared mutual caring for a period of some months before life finally normalized, we forgot that all we have is each other, and the everyday rush and bustle replaced a keener awareness of the human condition. This poem brought it all back. Thank you.
Lovely poem and a great wish for the coming year.
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