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"Peace...can't be imagined before it is made."


What a sad, terrifying tragedy we saw, again, this week. I always find myself heartbroken and bewildered when I learn about such intentional murderous acts. I am sorely challenged to find solace and meaning in my own spiritual side. Poets, I find, are some of the people who have given graceful expression to my own feelings. Here is Making Peace by Denise Levertov.

A voice from the dark called out,

'The poets must give us

imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar

imagination of disaster. Peace, not only

the absence of war.'

But peace, like a poem,

is not there ahead of itself,

can't be imagined before it is made,

can't be known except

in the words of its making,

grammar of justice,

syntax of mutual aid.

A feeling towards it,

dimly sensing a rhythm, is all we have

until we begin to utter its metaphors,

learning them as we speak.

A line of peace might appear

if we restructured the sentence our lives are making,

revoked its reaffirmation of profit and power,

questioned our needs, allowed

long pauses . . .

A cadence of peace might balance its weight

on that different fulcrum; peace, a presence,

an energy field more intense than war,

might pulse then,

stanza by stanza into the world,

each act of living

one of its words, each word

a vibration of light-facets

of the forming crystal.

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