Wage Peace and JOY will Reign

Wage Peace
by Judyth Hill, September 11, 2001

Wage Peace with your breath.
Breathe in firemen and rubble,
breathe out whole buildings and flocks of red wing blackbirds.
Breathe in terrorists 

and breathe out sleeping children and fresh 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, memorize the words for thank you in 3 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 word seemed so fresh and precious:

              Have a cup of tea and rejoice.

              Act as if armistice has already arrived.

Celebrate today.

    

Additionally from me:        

     Celebrate you and those close to you.
Hug them deeply.
Love them fully.
Take time to sit by the fire and hold JOY.

       Mourn for those lost and hold them in your heart.  

          (in memory of those lost by violence this year)