Peace is not something to be found outside; it must be cultivated from within.
Even in a divided world, peace is possible—not because the world changes,
but because our hearts change.
—Venerable Bhikkhu Pannakara, leading the Walk for Peace

•••

We are carrying the heaviest things these days—
one among us with a massive old walnut tree
threatening her house where a woman
and her son with brain cancer live.

One among us having been recently rear-ended,
the effects of which are pinging through her body
like jolts of electricity—she, too, with a beloved
in the late stages of cancer.

All of us staggered by the weight of cruelty
and meanness of a corrupt leader and his
minions in what we used to think of as
our country, the land of the free,

the home of the brave. On our knees,
wishing for relief on a day when hundreds
of teenagers walked out of school, then
miles to the Capitol of our state,

joining so many outraged, so many
carrying signs: Wake up, America.
We need to relearn empathy.
Uncle Sam pointing his bony finger,

saying, I want YOU to defend democracy.
We’re ready to defend; we’re saying no.
But the walnut tree and the broken car
and the aching body require TLC first.

So let us, just for a moment, put down
the heavy, rest our arms, take a load off.
Let us write, as a Buddhist monk suggests,
walking with his brother monks across

America on a 2,300-mile peace pilgrimage:
Today will be my peaceful day.
Then breathe mindfully, sending
kindness and compassion into the world.

It will feel like so little. It may look
like nothing. But, the monks would
tell you, it is everything to awaken
the peace that lives within us all.