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Writings for Peace

Bringing you poetry and prose from around the world to reflect the broader humanitarian mission of Peace Partners. It is our hope to provide a safe space for compassion, empathy, and insight into our shared want for a more peaceful society. Here we showcase work from familiar names and those too-long overlooked by history, as well as the new and emerging voices of today.

i see what i want

21/4/2021

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We conclude our eco-poetics series in Palestine, whose desert landscapes and famed olive trees continue to persevere through decades of uncertain turmoil. Mahmoud Darwish, widely considered the national poet of Palestine, is a symbol of our shared struggle for peace and stability. “I See What I Want”, with its vivid depictions of natural beauty across this spacious earth, is an appropriate (if all-encompassing) poem to carry out beyond our month-long series: 
I See What I Want

I see what I want in the farm...right now I see
braids of wheat combed by the wind, and I close my eyes
This mirage leads to Nihawand,
and this calm leads to lapis lazuli
 
I see what I want in the sea ... right now I see
a rush of swans at sunset, and I close my eyes
This wandering leads to an Andalusia,
and this sail is a dove's prayer over me
I see what I want in the night ... right now I see
the endings of this long life at one of the cities' gates
I will toss the pages of my log into the cafes at the dock and find a seat
for my absence aboard one of the ships
I see what I want in the soul: the face of a stone
scratched by lightning- green, oh land, green is the land of my soul-
haven't I been a child playing at the edge of a well?
I'm still playing ... this space is my playground and the stone is my wind
I see what I want in peace ... right now I see
a deer and grass and a stream of water ... and I close my eyes:
this deer is asleep on my arm
and the hunter asleep, too, near its sons, in a faraway place
I see what I want in war ... right now I see
the arms of our ancestors squeezing a wellspring into green stone
And our fathers inherited the water, but did not bequeath it, and I close my eyes:
The land in my hands is the work of my hands
I see what I want in prison: days of a flowering
that led from here to two strangers in me
seated in a garden- I close my eyes:
How spacious is the earth! How beautiful the earth from the eye of a needle
I see what I want in lightning ... right now I see
farms bursting from their chains with vegetation- bravo!
The song of the walnut floats down, white above the villages' smoke
like doves ... doves we feed alongside our children
I see what I want in love ... right now I see
horses making the plain dance, fifty guitars sighing
and a swarm of bees sucking wild mulberry, and I close my eyes
to see our shadow behind this homeless place
I see what I want in death: I fall in love, and my chest opens
and a white unicorn jumps out and gallops over the clouds
soaring on endless gauze, swirling with eternal blue
So please do not stop my death, do not return me to a star of soil
I see what I want in blood: right now I see the murdered,
his heart lit by the bullet, say to his murderer: from now on you remember
no one but me. I killed you without meaning to but from now on
you remember no one but me, nor can you endure spring flowers
I see what I want in the theatre of the absurd: fiends in judges' robes,
the emperor's hat, the masks of our time, the colour of old sky,
women who dance for the palace, the chaos of armies
Then I choose to forget everything, remember only the noise behind the curtain
I see what I want in poetry: when poets died, we attended their funerals,
buried them with flowers, returned safely to their poetry ...
now in the age of magazines, movies, and droning, we laugh--sprinkle
a handful of soil on their poems, come home to find them at our door
I see at dawn what I want in the dawn ... right now I see
nations looking for bread in other nations' bread
Bread is what unravels us from the silk of drowsiness, from the cotton of our dreams
Is it from a grain of wheat that the dawn of life shines ... and the dawn of war?
I see what I want in people: their desire
for yearning, their reluctance to go to work,
their urgency to come home ...
and their need for greetings in the morning


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THE moon is high

14/4/2021

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Picture
​This week, our continued showcase of eco-poetics will take us around the world to Southeast Asia, with its delicate island ecosystem and diverse marine life. The Indonesian poet Toeti Heraty is a groundbreaking female voice in the region’s contemporary canon, and here we are proud to share “The Moon is High”:
​The moon is high
Not a crescent this time.
On Gilimeno island, on the sandy beach,
it glides beyond experience
beyond the reach of my hand.
The moon is high
Pale and round, the drum
Beats, speckled silver-bright.
The casuarinas dance, the waves lash out;
The passion of life, love, their meaning
Pages that need
To be sorted.
The moon is high.
Honey from Sumbawa in Mataram!
Questions and answers are a bitterness -
An angry honey moon
Very late, a distant, intermittent hum
After the TV has been switched off, and conversation
Has died down; after the boats have foundered.
This time you have mastered the skill
Of throwing the safety rope
From island to island.
I have not yet drowned, I have not drifted
Even though I have no anchor.
A bewitching moon beckons
Melbourne and Sidney-style property on the beach
Verandas draped with bougainvillea
Tall grasses and crotons will collapse in fear
Battered by storms
Before this manuscript, this life story
Has reached its final age.
The moon is high
Clear as the tinkle of a bell
The sound of foreign cash spreads
The corals are desecrated, and the tourist's dream.
Wanderer, honey moon,
Lyrics of a song, fragments of a tune
Searched for and nearly found.
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Metamorphosis

7/4/2021

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Picture
​From the lush greenery of W.S. Merwin’s vast Maui garden with its 900 palm varietals, we move now to the rich rain forests of Nicaragua and “Metamorphasis” by Gioconda Belli. Belli is a celebrated writer, activist, and 2019 recipient of the Oxfam Novib/PEN Award for Freedom of Expression. The award is given in recognition of a writer’s continued and courageous work in the face of persecution:
Metamorphasis
 
The vines
Are twisting
From my ears.
 
My eyes have become
pistils in motion
and purple flowers
flow from my mouth.
 
As I walk,
the house fills
with my leaves.
 
My branches block the room,
and I’m tangled up in everything.
My nose has already turned green, too,
and I no longer smell the same.
I bump into the furniture,
and my legs are breaking through bricks
in search of land,
tangling me up even more.
 
Now that my hair pushes against the walls,
I can barely move.
My arms have shrunk away,
leaving just my fingers,
while my body’s
become a trunk.
 
With my fingers
I touch my new
self all over
among the leaves
and twigs
and flowers that fill my mouth
and stain my teeth.
 
My fingers explore me
With a touch fertile
for my growing branches,
and finally,
after so much resistance,
my hands give in
and tiny thorns sprout
from my nails.
 
The purple flowers from my mouth
cover my body,
and in my metamorphosis
I am a twisting mass of vines
thorny,
alone,
one with nature.

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  • Home
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