POEM IN SEARCH OF PEACE

This poem is a search for peace
on a suffering planet.
This poem remembers what we have forgotten:
that we are all one.
This poem has trouble seeking personal peace,
when most of the planet is struggling to survive.

This poem is looking at floods, hurricanes, 

wildfires, earthquakes, wars, genocides,
humans and animals terrified and dying.

This poem feels the pain of Mother Earth, 

of the wild things, of the children, 

of the mothers watching their children die.

This poem can’t bask in the sun 

while its sisters and brothers,
and the blessed creatures, 

both domestic and wild,
are fleeing for their lives in a world askew.
This poem can’t be all about me,
when the “us” of the world is in need.

This poem is a hope and a prayer for a peace
that swells from the grassroots 

and topples the tyrants.
This poem links hands with those on the ground,
trying to save the lives of those around them.
This poem believes that most of us want peace,
and that we have to build it ourselves,
community by community,
for our leaders have gone mad.

I adapted Hannah Gosselin’s Boomerang Metaphor form for this poem. For Susan’s prompt at Midweek Motiff: Peace. It is hard to hope we will turn this mess around, yet now is not the time to give up. A lot could be changed if one person were removed from office. The nuclear threat would lessen, for example. he is a danger to the world.