Peace is not a whisper;
it is a door left open.
It is the light that stays on
when the street goes dark,
the quiet cup of tea
set down between two shaking hands.
Peace is not weak.
It does not bow its head.
It stands in the centre of the storm
and says, enough.
It is the courage
to lower your voice
when you could raise it,
to unclench your fist
and find a pulse instead.
Peace grows in small places.
In school halls.
On crowded buses.
At kitchen tables where words once burned
and now begin to soften.
It is the brave art
of listening past your own echo.
The steady work
of seeing a stranger
and choosing not fear,
but wonder.
Peace builds bridges
from the thinnest thread of hope.
It stitches torn flags
into blankets.
It turns battlefields
into gardens where children run.
Do not mistake its silence
for absence.
Peace is a deep river,
moving under the noise of the world,
patient, certain, strong.
And when enough of us
step into that river,
the current shifts.
The shouting thins.
The ground remembers
how to bloom.
Peace is power,
not loud,
not cruel,
but enduring.
It is the future
walking towards us
with open hands.
JH
Julan62 