Peace is Imaginary. | Teen Ink

Peace is Imaginary.

June 3, 2010
By walpurgisnacht BRONZE, Fairfax, Virginia
walpurgisnacht BRONZE, Fairfax, Virginia
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

At my grandmother's house, I see the country.
I can feel it beneath my toes
As ants crawl unworriedly
And cows moo softly for fodder
From my grandfather's strong hand:
-A bucolic scene.

A hectic scene:
On the other side of the portal lies the Country;
The painted sky and sun - and I see part of God's hand
Billowing contentedly, as if there were not a mile under his toes
Stuck inside, I sigh and await my fodder
While my new friend hums unworriedly.

At 6 PM on Monday, I work unworriedly-
An abnormal scene.
On the screen, aliens become fodder
For my Chain Gun. I smile - such a country
In which I live. Where a man can be content with toes
On his feet and fingers on his hands.

A million grains of sand rest in my hand
And, unworriedly,
I rub them on my toes.
It's like that scen
In my Mind where a man kills his Country
To give himself a proper peace and his cattle a proper fodder.

On the news children cry for fodder,
While I quietly take notes with the pen in my hand
For Government Class. Yet people go to that country
In hopes of living unworriedly.
And I think, "they'll need a proper death scene;
Only in their graves will flowers grow from their toes."

I pick the lint from in between my toes
And leave it on the floor - fodder
Later for my angry mother. Perhaps it'll be my death scene.
Perhaps, perhaps not. I'd like to use my hands
For better things. Maybe rescuing others, unworriedly
From the burning buildings that are our countries.

I saw God's toes the other day and touched them with my hands.
They were rough were people gnawed for fodder, but there they lay, unworriedly
Amongst an apocalyptic scene. Like a link between our countries.

The author's comments:
I wrote this two years ago, and then found it again last week when I was cleaning out my English notebook.

It's a sestina, where the six words at the end of the first six lines of the first stanza are the last words of every line (again six) in the next five stanzas. Except for the last stanza - this is three lines, and the words are used throughout it. My teacher said that there were, at most, 2-3 good sestinas in the English language...which, I thought, was a bloody shame. So I wrote another one, hoping it might be good enough to join the others.

Everything in this poem is inspired by true events from when I was 15: a summer at my grandparents' farm, my first trip to Europe, my travails with homework, a thoughtful day at the beach, a Government assignment, and my Mom getting ballistic with me over toe lint. Yes - these things really happen to me, and with the world as strange as it is, it can happen to anyone. Anyways, 15 was the age for me when everything stopped being simple - and I wanted to show that transition. Although I reached that moment perhaps a little late, all teenagers go through the experience of transition from childhood to adulthood, where they learn the world is not quite so simple as they want it to be. I hope I have some sympathizers out there!

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