The Color of Peace

We know the anger all too well,

that red fountain of rage and blood,

the escalating crimson fury,

the silver glint of sharpened weapons,

the flood of olive-tinted pride,

those poisoned words that twist at your heart

and call you to battle

against an amorphous other.

We are born into a world of conflict,

of senseless escalation, without the resonance of mercy.

Neighbors sowing seeds of resentment and recrimination

over barking dogs and misplaced fence lines.

Parents whose passion turned to bitterness,

spew green, jealous insults from angry faces

while their children, standing between them,

cover their ears.

.

Surrounded by this turmoil,

we feel the tendrils and tangles closing in

and struggle each day to find pockets of calm.

The soul seeks escape, retreat,

a quieter moment, a breath of cool, clean air,

to say ‘wait, wait, wait’

as it stares into the hypnotic blue-green of a vast ocean,

the horizon a steady boundary between salt and air

and breathes deeply.

To go to my Smoky Mountains, blue and gray from a distance,

and leave the road to stand in a cathedral of grass and leaves

glowing emerald green in the evening sunshine,

while the sweetest light of the day paints cool shadows

across rosy hills and valleys.

To dig fingers deep into damp, dark earth

and feel on our hands the cool, red Tennessee clay

that holds moisture long after the rain has passed.

To gaze into the pure, calming blue of a sky

undisturbed by clouds or machines,

the cool white light of the winter sun holding steady

even though the earth has turned away.

.

The soul is temporarily refreshed,

but finds the world still there when a new day dawns,

demanding attention, engagement, acknowledgment.

The inescapable clashes of everyday life settle in

and the gray, bone-tired heaviness soon returns.

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What if we were to step back

To reimagine, to reframe our view

of this ocean of conflicts, large and small.

What if we were to treat them not as inescapable ordeals,

not imminent disasters, not a clash with an enemy,

not something to stumble through

with the red-hot rage that disguises our fear,

or icy blue coldness, the feigned indifference

of one who hides how much they care?

What if instead of fighting to overcome,

we sought to understand?

.

Perhaps we would find, instead, opportunities

to transform, strengthen, enhance, and build.

For peace is not an empty void, a neutral beige space,

a night-black vacuum where sparks cannot fly.

Peace is a thing that must be cultivated and refreshed.

It emerges from struggle and reckoning,

from a process where voices are heard,

where wrongs and injustices are addressed,

and disparate ideas are merged.

Peace comes from curiosity, growth, and rebirth,

from the acts of powerful reimagining, engaging, and changing.

Like my quiet blue mountains, seemingly eternal,

that were born from collisions,

from tremors that shook and buckled the earth.

The sky is clearest after heavy purple clouds,

heralded by the sweet, hazy scent of petrichor,

roll across the landscape,

releasing a storm of cleansing grace.

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It is the goal of a peacemaker

to turn toward the rumbling storm, the quaking earth,

the raised voices and fiery anger,

and stand unafraid, undaunted,

watching and listening, witnessing the dignity

in those who cannot see it in each other.

To hold space for a moment of vulnerability

that opens the door for everything else to shift.

To refocus energy that was bent on destruction

into building common understanding and trust.

To uplift voices unused to being heard,

from weary people who don’t yet know that it is easier

to hear a whisper than a scream.

To show those who protect themselves with walls

to keep their enemies out

that they are now trapped inside.

The peacemaker opens the door

to dig beneath demands and refusals

so that honest needs can be identified

and a path forward can be forged.

That path is not found in “what did you do before”

but “where do we go from here?”

.

The greatest fury could be settled by the simplest words:

I hear you.

I see you.

Tell me more.

What do you need?

The peacemaker, listening with open, curious ears

to an undiscovered truth,

sees the world through the window of other eyes,

and knows that the universe is big enough

to hold more than one truth at a time.

In the moment that two people finally look into each other’s eyes

and see that their souls each shine with color,

those distinct hues cross the empty space between.

Where they finally meet, somewhere in the middle, they create a new color.

That is the color of peace.