Peace lives
ever where
our heart rests.
Hell exists
in conflicts of interest,
behind the confines
of self-imprisoned minds,
in those moments
we fail
to find
in others
that which is easy
and kind.
Our tongue,
by old habit, an easy bribe,
carves words that both
denounce and ascribe
a life at once
ignorant and sublime,
obsessed with staying
inside space and time.
When our eyes fix
on cruelty alone,
we have cut the world in half
and called the half the whole.
To mend it,
we lean in close and breathe the same air,
turning toward one another
the slow way
a flower turns to face the sun,
righting the balance,
revealing the quiet power
that was ours all along.
Let the peace in
through one peaceful thought.
Build with a wider eye.
Lay a plank across the gap
and walk it to each other.
We are,
each and every one of us,
both the dreamer and the dream,
the hand on the clay
and the clay.
This is the work,
and the work is ours.
Love is the main course.
Desire, a sweet dessert.
Ecstasy, the food of prayer,
that fills us and heals the hurt.
And our smiles turn sweet,
our eyes go bright,
the way a window catches
the late gold light,
no doubt left in us,
only the knowing
that this, right here, is right.
You will never taste hell
by wishing your neighbor well,
by lifting them along the way.
Together, by choice,
we make
a lighter day.
In the palm of one hand
are counted
each and every grain of sand.
We each choose
our own voice:
to judge one another,
or to rejoice.
So, my friend,
let the shoulders drop.
Let the jaw unclench.
The prayer was heard
before the asking,
the way a room hears
the first note
before the song.
Let’s use interchangeable pronouns.
It doesn’t matter
how the One is pronounced.
Me, or Him, or You, or We—
any One of us
sets any other One free.
Rob Chavez 1991