Blog Blast for Peace

South Wind

The rain has fallen all the week and the creek is high,
nearly out of it's banks, swirling with anger
and irrational power, tearing trees from the banks
and hurling them downstream in riot of currents gone amok.

You stand in the rain, watching the water creep higher each hour.
Wet and cold with the incessant downpour, you wonder
how much longer before the water rips the very earth
and tears aside the foundation of the house you built so long ago.

Each pelting drop of rain is torture. Each dancing whirl of water
threatens the place you have called home,
threatens to sweep away the tiny garden by your door.
You shiver in fear, and stay in wonder,

as if, by your presence, the flood would abate.
As if, by the power of your prayer the rain would stop.
With each passing moment of downpour, your sense of smallness
rises like the water itself, when it happens - the south wind

rises and as mysteriously as they came, so many nights ago,
the clouds part and the sun drenches the land
with bright, warming light, almost blinding
after so many days of dark.

Suddenly, the flowers that remain seem brighter,
the grass greener, and you can almost see the waters
subside inch by inch.

And still you stand,
amazed. Grateful.
Overwhelmed,
for in this singly moment

you have experienced the nearness of death
and the peace of life
returned.


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Started by Mimi Lenox a writer and blogger from North Carolina (I think), Blog Blast for Peace has become an annual event, with bloggers around the world writing on the subject of peace. The range of approaches is phenomenal and if you are interested in seeing the range of then, visit Mimi's blog and visit some of the many, many bloggers who take part in this event each year.

For me, all peace comes from God, and from a place inside ourselves first. Only when we live in a place without internal conflict, can we shed the external conflict that is part and parcel of life, and so I chose a poem that, I hope, reflects that.

Tom