No Writing Peace

There is no writing peace;

peace is an unnatural word.

Peace should be
an element ubiquitous,
like water, light and air,
born into all cells and fibers,
an active ingredient in bread,
planted as a crop,
mixed into cement,
displaying ultimate flexibility
along with diamond hardness,
wearing like iron,
yet as soft as down,
yielding to every need.

Peace should be
all things to all people,
indeed, all Being.

Instead, the human world
is built on the shifting sands
of arguments called diplomacy,
and the groundwater
liberally laced
with discord,
tribal enmity,
provincial vision,
irrational governance,
top-down authority,
and condoned oppression.

This thinking erodes the earth
by a grasping of more than is required,
and profanes life by promoting death,
while claiming to make sense
of an insensible world.

There is no writing peace.

Peace may be a beautiful word,
but until the word can
write people
to right action,
and the kind of living
that comes as naturally
and habitually effortless
as water, light and air,
the sands and time,
then its beauty is meaningless
and has no real place
in the language of life.

© 2011 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen