A Poem of War and Hope for Peace.

Here is a poem for my April  post that I wanted to try from my book stack challenge response to the war in the Ukraine. I will also try and post it with my favourite poetry blog although am a day late.

Dversehttps://dversepoets.com/2022/04/28/openlinknight-315/

I thought about taking the titles of the books that chose their place in the book stack as the concept of a ‘Blind Assassin’ from Margaret Atwood’s title really spoke to me. Blind can often be a metaphor for the inability to see the truth or suffering. We say to ‘turn a blind eye’. Saul was also blinded by the light. Those who really are physically unable to see often develop different ways of perceiving the world around them and may have the inner intuitive sight so many lack. TS Eliot in his poem the Waste Land uses the metaphor of blindness and a land without water to show the spiritual decline and alienation of the human spirit about 100 years ago.

A Poem of War and Peace

The Blind Assassin moves his tanks across the frozen lands.

Are not all assassins blind? Blind to human misery.

Blind to the brutal blows of deadly hands.

And so we all enter into those Dark Nights of the Soul where we cannot see

Where it will all end

Until we find the Kindness of Strangers

Arising from those roots of that other tree.

El Otro Arbol de Guernica. Where bombs rained down

For the first time on the ordinary man, woman and child

Around their tree of democracy.

In fear children sent alone to other lands.

In the hope one day their return will give birth

To A New Earth.

So I will now try and brighten up as the contrast between the news and the nature around me is both stark and ironic. The earth here in our part of Andalucia is responding well to the very many rainy days we have had. We have been blessed with some torrential downpours but not enough so we must all learn to conserve this life-giving resource.

After the cherry blossom comes the apple blossom. And here in April the ‘May’ which is one of the English rural words for the hawthorn flowers is out in full bloom to the delight of the carpenter bees and many others.

Hawthorn blossom

Wild solomon’s seal

peoni broteri

Spanish broom

An olive tree found deep in an overgrown wood.

April 29th is also a day for me to remember my mother who died 21 years ago now to this day. I did write a poem in 2011 as it was a hard day to reflect as the UK celebrated the wedding of William and Kate and I posted it for Dverse last year at this time.

https://navasolanature.wordpress.com/2021/04/29/april-poems-and-april-showers-april-is-the-month-mixing-memory-and-desire/

These books are the ones in the poem which were discussed in my last post. And my reading of War and Peace has got stuck in the war parts as the French army finally retreats but there is a lot of desperation and destruction for both sides. For me Tolstoy very much stands for peace, understands the futility of war and certainly does not glorify war.

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

Dark Nights of the Soul by Thomas Moore

The Kindness of Strangers by Kate Adie ( her autobiography as war correspondent for the BBC)

El otro arbol de Guernica by Luis de Castresana ( about being a child refugee sent to UK during Spanish Civil War)

A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle