What Does Peace Look Like?

Like two enemies or ones who should be
sitting on the porch and talking about
things ordinary and extraordinary
finding understanding and even camaraderie

Like misunderstandings, ship-in-the-night
mishaps being worked out among friends
or those who might become friends simply
because they both decide trust is possible

Like hands held across the generations
as each looks at the other with fondness
and desire – desire to know and see and
learn just what makes this mysterious
other tick and tock its way through life

Like joy in the success of the other
with no thought or idea that what
is theirs should be mine or mine
theirs and happiness at the just
because of it all bursts forth

Like streets quiet not because of
guns and tear gas and batons and
threats or even exhaustion but
because one man dared to cross
the imaginary line and walk alongside

Like a family rent with grief made
public given the space and time to
merely grieve without incessant
chatter from those not in the know
about what should have or could
have or must have been

Like people on a mountaintop
starved and fear-ridden looking
skyward to find even the possibility
of rescue and believing once
again in hope, hoping once again
in normalcy and possibilities and life

Like big people with big guns
coming to their proverbial senses
and pulling back from the madness
we too small to resist would follow
them into not knowing what else
to do

Like ancient squabblers stopping
the incessant chant mine, mine, mine
and seeing in the other that there
is room even in a small land for
all and more when ‘mine’ and
‘not yours’ are left behind for
the dream that peace is possible