You ask me, a poet, to write of peace

Saltworks by Japanese Artist:   Motoi Yamamoto

Instead 

I pour sea salt

on floor, white crystals on black 

forming lines, trails, zigzags, u-turns grief    

to healing, meticulously hour after hour, 

a canvas emerges 

Instead 

I stitch a patch  

with my sisters, aunts, girlfriends

pinning & folding each sides carefully, 

delicately threading, day after day

a quilt spreads

Instead

I prepare chicken soup

& fresh salads & bake pies

rinsing & wiping each plate & cup 

tending a warm fire, season after season

a hearth nests 

Instead

I pot the garden 

& sweep neighbor's side of fallen leaves

offering my bus seat to an old man

& smiles to tired woman behind the check-out counter

a bridge shapes  

Instead

I gather all:  words & salt grains

& hurl them back to the tides during autumn's eve  

perhaps this is how peace finally arrives:

to accept that all returns 

to sea  

Posted for D'verse Poets Pub - Poetics on Peace - Inspired by the artist work via Colossal

Thanks for the visit ~