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Waiting to Cease Fire

Ron Faust read "Waiting to Cease Fire" for the PeaceWorks KC Annual Meeting March 3, 2024.
Ron Faust reads his poem "Waiting to Cease Fire" at the PeaceWorks KC Annual Meeting.--Photo by Kriss Avery

By Ron Faust

Daffodils, myrtle, breaking out in “seasonal shouts of Springtime”–By Ron Faust
There is a stillness in the cold morning air
A light blue canopy with puffy clouds
Waiting…for something to happen
Anything to stir the nonchalance of the day
A bud to form leaves on the bare twigs
To break out seasonal shouts of Springtime

Waiting can be excruciatingly painful
When starving for your next meal
And all you can do is take your last breath
As bombs go off in the far distance
In war-torn Gaza with no place to go
Or on the shambled streets of Ukraine
Maybe death is the only relief there is

We’re tired of the death and destruction
So very tired of the missed transitions
When earlier diplomacy would save lives
Over the use of force and saber rattling
Avoiding a diplomacy allowing starvation
Now is time to change any course of genocide

We’re been waiting for a conscience of peace
To cease war rather than funding to prolong it
Waiting…for something to happen, not to despair,
We are the voice for the depth of peace to surface.

3/3/24  (On occasion of the annual meeting of PeaceWorks KC and memorial for Aaron Bushnell who gave his life as a peacemaker against genocide). (c) 2024, Ron Faust, Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 International License.

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