Wage Peace

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

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, memorize the words for thank you in

three languages.

Learn to knit, and make a hat.

Think of chaos as dancing raspberries, imagine grief as the

out breath 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.