DONA NOVIS PACEM 2020

When the news is bad,
and the world seems to have gone mad,
I wish there was a forest trail
I could run away on,
leading to a small wooden cabin
in a peaceful glen,
where there would be no more
news reports, no more divisive rhetoric,
only the song of the wind
rustling through the trees.

In that place, morning would wake me
with birdsong,  a smiling sun
rising behind the mountains.

Deer would amble softly past my window;
small rabbits would dart about,
stopping to nibble grass,
scratching their ears with their furry back feet.

In that place, my soul would open
like a trusting flower,
expanding to meet the vastness of the sky,
a blue bowl overhead bringing nothing
but day after peaceful day
to we creatures of the forest.

In that place, my heart would
begin to heal from the helplessness
of watching human beings stray
so far from the way our ancestors lived
on the living land. I hear their mournful voices
in the wind; raindrops are their tears of sorrow
falling to earth.

We are living in a mad, mad world,
breath held, fingernails bitten down
to the quick, hoping for good things,
for kind words, for an end to division,
for peaceful hearts for all.

Meanwhile, the sky overhead watches serenely;
the Bigger World continues on its path.
We make our way from one day to another
with no shortage of hope, clinging to
the memory of a shining dream
we once held so dear.

Our passports to Tomorrow
are our green hearts,
our love for Mother Earth,
our refusal to watch her die.

I am readying my peace globe as I monitor CNN during the election of the President of the USA.  As always, nature is the balm for my anxious heart. My love for Mother Earth keeps me working to help her survive. This much I know is true: there can be no peace without social justice. We are farther from social justice than we have been for fifty years. How to keep hope alive? We must keep our hearts open, and hold onto the vision of how this world was meant to be.

Blogging with Mimi Lenox and the peace bloggers. What a decade we peace bloggers have lived. Good luck to us all. God bless us, every one. Smiles.