A Poem: Peace Tunes

There is always peace somewhere.

Where there is a pool deep
on a mountain plateau,
there is peace reflected
as a mountain-scape in the blue.

There is always peace somewhere.

Where there is a forest green
on the side of the highway,
there is peace in the bird’s songs,
their lilting tunes clear as flutes.

There is always peace somewhere.

Where there is lack of certainty,
absence of clarity, assurance,
there is peace outside our windows,
the pink, blue tinged clouds.

Open your rooms.

And let the peace transmit from one
doorway to another.
It is like an orchestra, in which we each
play our instrumental parts,

in a soaring musical score

that will reach down to your marrow,
and then carry you,
a peaceful presence,
to the next person.

Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
October 2021

‘In Hebrew the term dabar means both ‘word’ and ‘deed.’ Thus to say something is to do something. I love you. I hate you. I forgive you. I am afraid. Who knows what such words do, but whatever it is, it can never be undone. Something lay hidden in the heart that is irrevocably released through speech into time, is given substance and tossed like a stone into the pool of history, where the concentric rings lap out endlessly. Words are power, essentially the power of creation. By my words I both discover and create who I am. By my words I elicit a word from you. Through our converse we create each other.’
~ Frederick Buechner

‘In choosing to be compassionate, we are yielding to the compassionate nature of God flowing through us, in and as our compassion toward our self as precious in our frailty.”
~ James Finley