Peace begins in the ground.
Softer than breathing.
More lasting than bones.

The long future. The long past.
We are touching it now.
In shadows of birds

on silver-black water. Cloudlight.
Starlight. Her lips to mine.
Its music already playing

beneath branches forming archways
through which the whole sky falls.
Without ending peace begins

in shredded cloth and rubble.
In streams of pain. In shattered words.
The children learning to read

our faces. Dawn blooms
as mothers and fathers mourn.
In the silence of salt. In a teardrop.

We are tasting it now.
Its singular ocean.
Its ongoing wave.

 

Copyright © 2016 by Janet E. Aalfs.