Back to Me: Opening Poem "Peaces"

Peaces By K.B.W.

Peace has become a four letter word. An action in its inaction— It breaks me. Peace be with you… And also with you. What do you do with the pieces of the peace we have gained and lost? They all say, all I want is “world peace” Do they mean peace Or the pieces they break it into? Peace is more than a hippie’s dogma or religious refrain. It is the soul’s utterance of acceptance and being— Of light and darkness And the haunted shadows of the peace makers in between. I seek and search and sense a query. Inner peace. But what is that? The karma of a guru or a Taoist priest? How can I feel the peace when all I am are the broken pieces of the blindness and fragmentation that the world has banished me to? Pieces… pieces, built together in the masterwork of puzzles. Being the single peace of the pieces before me. A moment, soft, true, beautiful —connect them As the peaces fall into place. But memory, time and exposure come upon me again. A light flickers in the darkness and I see the moment, feel the fear— no escape! Lost… the world continues around me but I am no longer fitting the mold. Not in sadness but in anger and fear do these visions torment me… relentless without peace or pieces. The true four letter word appears as They separate me— PTSD. Fight – flee the drums, alarms, balloons, bangs, shouts, crying. Pieces move me from you. I am frozen here in the shattered pieces. Then I remember— Step to one side, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.” A step, a chance, a hope, a dream, a movement… A beginning. A world beyond this pain. In this new moment, I breathe. Enter in the peace to glue Back the pieces of my broken self. Begin in the infinite pose of pain Step to one side to begin to heal. That is the beauty of Inner Peace[1]. May peace not pieces be with you… And also with you.

[1] Name of the T’ai Chi class I taught. This poem was written for my T’ai Chi students before the trial began in Aurora, Colorado.