Making Peace

A voice from the dark called out, 
                       ‘The poets must give us 
imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar 
imagination of disaster. Peace, 
not only the absence of war.’ 
                                       But peace, like a poem, 
is not there ahead of itself, 
can’t be imagined before it is made, 
can’t be known except 
in the words of its making, 
grammar of justice, 
syntax of mutual aid. 
                                        A feeling towards it, 
dimly sensing a rhythm, is all we have 
until we begin to utter its metaphors, 
learning them as we speak. 
                                                A line of peace might appear 
if we restructured the sentence our lives are making, 
revoked its reaffirmation of profit and power, 
questioned our needs, 
allowed long pauses . . . 
                         A cadence of peace might balance its weight 
on that different fulcrum; peace, a presence, 
an energy field more intense than war, 
might pulse then, 
stanza by stanza into the world, 
each act of living 
one of its words, each word 
a vibration of light—facets 
of the forming crystal.

--Denise Levertov (1923-1997), Anglo- American poet, from Breathing the Water, 1987