Poetry

Peace is not

Sterile gauze, a snowflake, an insipid dove

It’s feisty and rich

Don’t let the war boys hog it all

The spit, the spice and the glamour.

Peace is potency

Reaching and sprouting

Budding and branching

It’s lifting things

A good scrap

A hot wrestle and a cool scrub

Cleansing and hope.

Peace is the empowerment of dust

Whispers of the song before origin

As out of seed

The cathedral of the body builds itself

It’s spasms and metamorphoses

The vertigo

of mind and dancing

With the fecundator

To the music of need.

Peace

It is little orange bees

Spotted ladybugs on white campions.

Late June with a stink of linden

Prickles and burrs

It’s wild grapes in a bramble

A tough nut

Lovers churning

Through the night, at noon, in the morning

A juicy comeuppance

For the grim suppressors.

Peace

Is for the star-biters and the rooted.

Don’t be dainty

Go at it

Hammer and tong.

Peace is not purity

Limp, neat and dry.

It’s sexy.

---- Clifford Browder

Gary Baran is a certified trainer in Non-Violent Communication and plays banjo and guitar.