Peaceful Beginnings Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

Peaceful Beginnings

On an island, in a big ocean, generals walk about
think they have killed a dream and call sullen
silence peace. The crushed will go on dreaming
till they get what they want, maybe by then their
vision has become a suffocating dream.

Nearer home, in the Middle East, the mighty are
trying to kill a dream by bulldozing it, they too
had a vision and should know that dreams cannot
be eradicated. Now they want power, and call it
peace; but there are those who call it a nightmare.

Of course in the immeasurable future there will
be colossal amounts of peace, the sun will cross
the heavens and the world will heal in silence; till,
on the strand of pure sand, sky and sea may give
birth to a living creature and a scream is heard.