This is an angry poem.
About those weasel phrases
which blow like paper in the street
going nowhere,
hiding truth,
helping us to
deceive ourselves.
'The pee-yus pro-sayus' -
say it in the Irish voice
of obscurantist politicians
often enough
and we'll accept it as a term,
and believe that it needs hard work
and forward planning
and careful progress
and compromise
and agreements
and initiatives
and 'generous' concessions
and declarations of intention
and cautious examination
of opponents' motives
in the 'battle' for peace
and coming together
to establish differences...
Peace
is what is eternally there
when war and strife is absent.
Eternally.
I can't remember Christ
(was he Catholic or Protestant? I just can't remember...)
saying
'Peace process be unto you'...
uh, when would that be? ...
or commanding the waves of the Sea of Galilee
'Engage in the peace process - be still'...
somehow it just doesn't seem to carry weight
as a blessing or a do-it-now...
'Go in process towards peace, my child...'
I wonder why that is.