Wage Peace by Judyth Hill

 

The Smart Witch

Wage Peace

by Judyth Hill

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.'

Notes:

Judyth Hill, poet, performer, writing teacher, and author, lives in the verdant Jalpa valley, ringed by Los Picachos mountains, just outside San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. She studied with poet Robert Bly, storyteller Gioia Timpanelli, and Deep-Ecologist Dolores LaChapelle. Learn more about this award-winning poem and poet: https://www.judythhill.com/

[Image: Mandolinenspielerin (The Mandolin Player) oil on canvas by Conrad Kiesel (Konrad Kiesel)(1846-1921), a German sculptor, painter and architect. Public domain.]

The Smart Witch by Elizabeth