The Fullness of Peace

photo: from Pexels-skitterphoto
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
 

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