The Fullness of Peace
The emptiness, which is found in a small room
walled with grey cement blocks, is not peace, nor
is the silence there peace.
Peace is something that floods into a white bowl
set in the window, holding the calm reflection
of an evening sky.
On the fading lawn, peace sits on a wooden bench
that is not vacant but filled with waiting
for more such days.
Peace inspires the late breezes, on which it calls
like roosting birds and floats with wood smoke,
roses and old books.
Where the heat of day has drained, the garden
is not dark, but dense and peaceful with twilight
and the beginnings of mist.
Peace lifts the tall pine, whose ragged head
is not empty, while its million needles weave
some threads of memory.
Gazing there, it’s clear that peace is not a dead stop.
That movement in the high branches, in the last light,
only a still eye can see
© Michael Hutchinson 2011