Deep Peace

What actions are most excellent? 

To gladden the heart of a human being. 
To feed the hungry. 
To help the afflicted. 
To lighten the sorrow of the sorrowful. 
To remove the wrongs of the injured. 
That person is the most beloved of God 
who does the most good to God’s creatures. 

~  Muhammad ~ 

 Wildpeace 

Not the peace of a cease-fire 
not even the vision of the wolf and the lamb, 
but rather 
as in the heart when the excitement is over 
and you can talk only about a great weariness. 
I know that I know how to kill, that makes me an adult. 
And my son plays with a toy gun that knows 
how to open and close its eyes and say Mama
A peace 
without the big noise of beating swords into ploughshares,
without words, without 
the thud of the heavy rubber stamp: let it be 
light, floating, like lazy white foam. 
A little rest for the wounds – who speaks of healing? 
(And the howl of the orphans is passed from one generation 
to the next, as in a relay race: 
the baton never falls.) 

Let it come 
like wildflowers, 
suddenly, because the field 
must have it: wildpeace

~ Yehuda Amichai ~ 

(The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai, translated by Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell)