deploying bombs
to achieve lasting peace—
like planting barbed wire
and expecting to grow
a rose bush
Posts Tagged ‘peace’
Illogic
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged growth, logic, peace, war on February 28, 2026| 19 Comments »
Listening for the Singing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged giraffe, peace, singing on January 27, 2026| 12 Comments »
Everything and everywhere is all here. It’s always been here.
—Bunkong Tuon, “Year of the Snake”
All the peace that has ever been
and will ever be is here now.
Hard not to focus
on the noose of injustice,
which is, of course, always here, too.
As it has always been.
As it will always be.
To praise the world is to praise it all.
How hard to praise it all.
I have heard giraffes make a low hum
in the night, a way, scientists think,
to help them find each other in the dark.
Perhaps this is why I find myself
singing so much in these darkened days—
a way to call to the others,
let them know as the noose tightens
we are here together.
And when it is especially hard,
I listen. Mostly, I trust peace is always here.
Still the relief to hear the singing.
I know am not alone.
A Great Shining
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged breath, connection, impossible dream, love, moon, peace on January 23, 2026| 1 Comment »
inspired by Maya Stein’s 10-line poem form
What if, in this moment, every person on earth thinks of someone who makes us feel cherished, known, safe? What if we let ourselves linger in this moment of connection? What might happen inside each body? What might happen in the world as in unison our breaths begin to even and slow? Would the pulsing of our hearts begin to synch, the way heart cells in a petri dish come to keep time with each other? What is earth if not a great experiment in which we are all both observer and observed? How long could it last, this rhythmic communion between jailor and prisoner, oppressor and oppressed, between fighter and fighter, maker and destroyer, parent and child, liar and believer, all of us thinking of love? Foolish, perhaps, to imagine such impossible moments. But more foolish not to imagine such things. Even now, I’m thinking of someone. It feels like the moon is inside me.
All This
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ache, heartache, paradox, peace, politics, snow, woods on January 11, 2026| 6 Comments »
after the killing of Renee Nicole Good
Into the woods I carried
my broken open heart,
knowing it rhymed with millions
of other broken open hearts,
and there, in the silence
of spruce trees and new snow
and cloudless blue sky, the heart
gaped with its relentless ache.
I so deeply loved the world and
I was so terribly upset by the world.
All this. All this. The snow was
impossibly peaceful. It softened
every broken rock, broken stick.
I felt, at the same time,
the raw wound of injustice
and the infinitude of primeval
peace, both of them saying,
remember, remember, remember.
Ever Changing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged change, peace, transformation on October 24, 2025| 9 Comments »
In my urgency to clutch it,
I made peace a thing
to be protected,
like a jewel, like a token,
instead of a force
that transforms.
What if I let peace sweep
through me as branches
are cleared by wind?
What if I let peace flood me,
scouring what I thought
I knew? What if, no matter
how hard I tried to
capture it, peace slipped
through my grasp like mist,
like rain, like time?
If I trusted an ever present
peace as much as I trust
ever present chaos,
who would I be then?
In the Quiet After
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aftermath, peace, wildfire on August 16, 2025| Leave a Comment »
I would never have invited it into my heart,
but it came, a wildfire, burning down
every single thing I thought I knew
about love. There were no wings
that appeared in the ash. Not all
fallen things learn to fly. But
the aftermath was the first time
I was still enough for long enough
to hear a peace that thrums
through everything. I do not pretend
to know how it works, but neither
can I pretend to not know it is here.
Even in the char. And, I suspect,
even in the flame.
What Comes Next
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged goodness, Palestine, peace, story, war on August 5, 2025| 13 Comments »
There’s a place in my brain where hate won’t grow.
—Naomi Shihab Nye, “Jerusalem”
The man in Palestine runs
toward airdropped parcels,
is shot in the back of his head.
The military says such a shot
was never fired. The dead man
does not argue back. His body
is carried away with medicine,
dried beans, sacks of flour.
How many more must weep?
This world. This world with its
guns and fear and righteousness.
Whether or not we hold the gun,
we all have a finger on a trigger.
What else can we do with our hands?
I want to believe in a goodness
that persists despite cruelty—
not a fairytale story with a wand
or a genie, but a real story in which
a real woman grows peaches and gives
them away for the joy of giving.
A story in which a man helps another
man build a home with a bed, an oven,
a roof. War comes so quickly.
Peace comes so slow. I want to believe
there is in all of us a place
where hate won’t grow.
I want to feed that place in myself.
I want to listen to that place in you.
I want us to live into another possible world,
discover what else our lives can do.
The Same Day the Military Leader Said, “We Will Respond with Force”
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged peace, war, woods on June 25, 2025| 3 Comments »
There was a moment in sun-dappled woods
when I felt held by the peace that blooms
in the lungs, then spreads to limbs, to mind,
the peace that comes when I turn toward
the throbbing ache of hate and war
and don’t pretend pain isn’t here
and don’t deny beauty, either.
Amidst the peace of the quiet woods,
I wanted more, more peace
that spreads from woods to breath.
More peace, as if peace could be shared
like cake or bread or shelter or song.
I wanted to share it everywhere,
more peace that makes the mind a glade
with gentle light and ample shade.
How could I not want peace to spread
to war-torn homes in war-torn lands,
to war-torn hearts and war-torn hands.
So deep the peace of the sun-dappled woods.
And still I wish for more.
Revolution
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged citizen, patriotism, peace, protest on April 5, 2025| 3 Comments »
After the political rally, standing on the corner
was the man in the pink flamingo onesie
and the handlebar mustache playing ukelele,
singing “This Land Was Made for You And Me,”
surrounded by folks still carrying their signs
for Peace, Diversity and Equality, and though
no one was listening, though there were no news trucks,
no microphones, no megaphones, and no way
any politician would hear their voices or see their signs,
there they were, singing and showing up despite,
and this was the moment that made me believe
in the path—not just the grand marches toward freedom,
but also the thin trails marked with courage and creativity,
small moments I can follow like bread crumbs
till this country again feels like home.