I am posting a poem that my mother had me read a long time ago and it stayed with me…almost haunting me. It is by Oscar Williams and it is especially perfect for today, with all the war and terrible tragedies going on in the world today. Although it mentions the Jews, you can put yourself or anyone else in their place. It really makes you think, and it is almost impossible to imagine a world without war, but it is beautiful to imagine. The last stanza gives you the hope you almost are afraid to wish for, for you cannot imagine it ever happening, but it is nice to think about. Read on and dream…
One Morning the World Woke Up
One morning the world woke up and there was no news;
No gun was shelling the great eardrum of the air
No Christian flesh spurted beneath the subtle screws,
No moaning came from the many agony-faced Jews,
Only the trees in a gauze of wind trembled and were fair.
No trucks climbed into the groove of an endless road,
No tanks were swaying drunken with death at the hilltop,
No bombs were planting their bushes of blood and mud,
And the aimless tides of unfortunates no longer glowed:
A break in the action at last…all had come to a stop.
Those trees danced, in their delicate selves half furled
And a new time on the glittering atmosphere was seen; The lightning stuttering on the closed eyelid of the world
Was gone, and an age of horizons had dawned, soft, pearled.
The world woke up to a scene like spring’s first green.
Birds chirped in waterfalls of little sounds for hours,
Rainbows, in miniature nuggets, were stored in the dews,
The sky was one vast moonstone of the tenderest blues,
And the meadows lay carpeted in three heights of flowers:
One morning the world woke up and there was no news.
Lone Soldier
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