Wage Peace.

I had almost forgotten about this poem. I'd been told it was by Mary Oliver, who is amazing, but now (upon Googling to find it) I learn that it's from a poet who lives in New Mexico, Judyth Hill.

I like that she lives there.
I like that her name includes the word Hill.
I'll have to check her out.

This is the kind of person I want to be. Sometimes I hold the rubble and terrorists and confusion in for far too long, dwelling on it, letting it poison me.

I want to be able to release it and instead relish all that's here to be enjoyed. And there is a LOT to savor.

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 outbreath 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.