Poems about peace

Peace Tower on Earth, Good Will to All People

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A Tower Called Peace

 

At the center of Parliament Hill stands

Peace on earth, good will to all people

A tower that someone named Peace

 

A Maple Leaf flag flies above this tower

Peace on earth, good will to all people

The symbol of a nation called Village

 

This Village is a colorful and orderly mess

Peace on earth, good will to all people

Of all kinds, pieces from all over making a mosaic

 

Trying for harmony, we hit some off notes

Peace on earth, good will to all people

As we struggle to read a score half-written

 

This village has its bad days and hits rough patches

Peace on earth, good will to all people

Despite its “Sorry” reputation

 

And this Village has its dark bits, closeted skeletons

Peace on earth, good will to all people

Of racism, violence, injustice, greed

 

As with any village, perfection is illusory

Peace on earth, good will to all people

An ideal unreachable as we reach from the real

 

Yet there stands that Tower someone called Peace

Peace on earth, good will to all people

Maybe not as a boast, maybe as a prophecy

 

Not a prophecy as in “fortune” like in a cookie

Peace on earth, good will to all people

But prophecy as a Voice of one crying in the wilderness

 

A Voice speaking truth to the Village

Peace on earth, good will to all people

Saying, “To claim peace you must first be peace”

 

Perhaps that Tower towers over the Village

Peace on earth, good will to all people

As a marker to make Peace impossible to forget

 

When everything but Peace seems to rule the day

Peace on earth, good will to all people

The Tower seems to say, “Pay attention.”

 

“Stay frosty, Village. Keep keen and sharp as blades.”

Peace on earth, good will to all people

“Peace isn’t easy, or cheap, or postcard material.”

 

Peace only comes after the battle, after bloodshed

Peace on earth, good will to all people

And Peace, truly, takes a Village

 

Everyone, everywhere, every day, every moment

Peace on earth, good will to all people

Fighting to be harmony in a discordant world

 

On Parliament Hill is a Tower called Peace

Peace on earth, good will to all people

In a big World that needs a little Village

 

To help it know: Peace on earth, good will to all people

 

 

  • Ronald Kok, December 2018

 

A Year of Creating Dangerously, Day 144: Words of Peace

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“Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell
There God is dwelling too.”
In the aftermath of yet another abhorrent and pointless terrorist attack, I was in need of some words of peace. Here are a few from English poet and artist William Blake, originally published in 1789.

The Divine Image 

To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
All pray in their distress;
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.
For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is God, our father dear,
And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is Man, his child and care.
For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity a human face,
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.
Then every man, of every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine,
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.
And all must love the human form,
In heathen, Turk, or Jew;
Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell
There God is dwelling too.