What Is Peace? A poem by Veronica Farmer

What is Peace?

What is Peace
Is it the absence of noise
Of the echoes of drama
Anger or pain?

Is it the play between gentle moments

The warm touch of fingertips
The catch in the throat
The heartbeat
Under thrumming fingers?

Is it touch at all
Or is it the absence of others?

Is Peace lonely?

Once I thought peace was pure silence
Away from touch, sound and connection
I craved it
Desired it
  
Fantasized standing on a quiet hilltop, or the sea's edge
Alone, feeling the wind on my face
Smiling at the sky

I wanted to run
Away
Separate from humans
Just me
And the female heart of the Earth's song
And the male Universe

Now, in this writers shack
Hearing the rain pouring on the roof
Alone
Just as I have desired
Fasting
Suffering my body

I see that after all

There is nothing more sublimely peaceful
Than loving quiet touch
Warm breath
A gentle smile
Warm oil on skin

It seems I am open to receiving love after all

After years of calling in calculating wizards
Ones who would watch amused
My unrequited need to be seen
Through half closed eyes

In this empty search
This Sehnsucht

Looking blindly for the missing jigsaw piece
That would not be found
I had turned my head from peaceful love

Afraid of offering my full self
To the Big Hearted ones
To their all seeing wide open eyes
I ran from truth
From non-manipulative love

It is easy to give, to hold 
Without receiving in return
Keep a wall
Smile and pretend that all is well

Much harder to open the heart
To allow warm blood flow to return

The stainless steel barrier is down
Wizards kicked to the kerb
Nothing more to reconcile with healing the cold Father
or the lost and separated ones

Ready now
To receive love from Light 
Of no longer keeping love out

The old fears 
Of Rejection
Abandonment
Humiliation
Ha!
Do your worst!

Now, my heart aches with hope

Longs
For the feel of kind trailing fingertips.
And smile lines
At the corners of unshrouded eyes

Peace then
Peace is presence
Peace is kind
Peace is love

Peace is
After all …
With

All Rights Reserved Veronica Farmer
For more of Veronica's writing check out her blog www.veronicafarmer.org