Wage peace with your breath.

Breathe in firemen and rubble,

     Breathe out whole buildings and flocks of red wing blackbirds.

Breathe in terrorists and breathe out sleeping children

     And freshly mown fields.

Breathe in confusion and breathe out maple trees.

Breathe in the fallen and breathe out lifelong friendships intact.

Wage peace with your listening: hearing sirens, pray loud.

Remember your tools: flower seeds, clothes pins, clean rivers.

Make soup.

Play music, memorize the words for thank you in three languages.

Learn to knit, and make a hat.

Think of chaos as dancing raspberries,

      Imagine grief

As the outbreath of beauty

     Or the gesture of fish.

Swim for the other side.

Wage peace.

Never has the world seemed so fresh and precious:

Have a cup of tea and rejoice.

Act as if armistice has already arrived.
Celebrate today.

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Judyth Hill is a poet, teacher, author, living wildly as ever, on her agave and bougainvillea bejeweled ranchito, Simple Choice Farm, in a lush valley just outside San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. She has authored 6 poetry collections, a cookbook, innumerable magazine articles, the internationally acclaimed poem, Wage Peace and –woweee!—leads WildWriting Culinary adventures ‘round the world!!!