The land is desolate

And greatly troubled

And the oppressed

Increase on the double.

We all have a vision

To achieve a mission

What tears will be shed

Whose blood must be bled

In our quest to approximate

Our notion of peace

In a land shred to pieces.

The land clamors

For that which brings glamour

The earth swells at its contours

And all souls join in diminutive humor

Conspiring in punitive splendor

While they yearn in all candor

To obtain and to contain

That which they cannot maintain-

A clear vision of a world at peace.

Though our perceptions differ

Black and white all together;

By our conceptions we infer

The diversity of our orientation as threats

Fighting in vain because we cannot agree

On a common ground by which our creed

Must be cast in one way

So we can merge our separate ways.

Fairness, equity and justice;

Words that convey different meanings

To different races

The road we must tread

To attain a common objective

Stretches so long yet so cunning

Truth and prosperity we sing with our

parted lips

The reality becomes our undoing clips.

‘Cos oppression, tyranny and annihilation

Have become suitors to a foreign mind

Professing and promoting and perpetuating

The duality of good and evil

As off-shoots from the same root.

Peace comes at a cost

Some have paid by returning to the dust.

Peace is a journey of a million miles

We must steer our way through the piles.

Stemming through endless times

That we may resolve to calm the tides

Our actions or inactions,

Jointly or severally

Cause us to remain as fractions

To the global state of distractions

Because we fail to comprehend

That peace comes at a cost –

The price decided

By our actions or inactions

Thus we remain

In a perpetual state of contraction

Our notion of peace must be known

Not to gain control over all the pieces.

Our notion of peace must be clear

Cannot acquiesce to remain oppressed.

Our notion of peace must lead us

To appropriate an environment

Of light and truth

No matter how we must evaluate peace

That we may live in a world at peace

We must pave our way to its door

Hoping that in the end

We would have learned the true essence

Of Brotherhood in the Neighborhood

No matter who neighs in the hood.

The land is greatly troubled

All are wise enough to know it

None are angry enough to show it

Everyone wallows away in abject envy

Thus our sufferings grow long and heavy

For the weak and wretched

Lack the strength to save themselves

From that which overwhelms them

Rather, they cleave onto that

Which consoles them.

It is painful to keep silent

About what one hears

We cannot be blinded

By what one sees.

And yet, it is of no use

To answer the ignorant.

What then must we say or do

So our vision can be actualized…

A world reigned by peace

A world not reined in pieces.