Poems for Peace

compiled by Stan Penner

It is said that the pen is mightier than the sword. And, somehow, even with all the problems we have on this planet of ours, I still believe that. It is my hope and prayer that the poems below can be of some help in stopping wars and keeping wars from starting in the first place.

The first poem below was written by Nicholas Peters just after the outbreak of World War II in 1939. Peters, who lived for some years at Grande Pointe, Manitoba, Canada, had emigrated from Russia in 1925 as a boy of ten and had seen firsthand the horrors of revolution and war in his native country. He joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1942 and trained as a flying officer. He died on the night of March 7-8, 1945 after his aircraft was hit by enemy fire. The poem is from a collection of Peters' work entitled Another Morn. The Peters family has given permission to have the poem published.

THE WARS WE MAKE

I gaze into the world with sorrowing eyes
And see the wide-abounding fruits of hate.
We fight, we say, for peace, and find
The wars we make
To be a spring of hate and source of future wars.

Is there no peace for man?
No hope that this accursed flow
Of blood may cease?
Is this our destiny: to kill and maim
For peace?
Or is this 'peace' we strive to gain
A thin unholy masquerade
Which, when our pride, our greed, our gain is
touched too far,
Is shed, and stands uncovered what we are?

Show me your light, O God
That I may fight for peace with peace
And not with war;
To prove my love with love,
And hate no more!

--Nicholas Peters

Some ten years ago, my wife and I stood beside Peters' grave in an Allied war cemetery in Germany, with a huge sword on a cross backdrop, and grieved for him and the countless others buried there "row on row" in those graveyards of Europe. Quietly they lie now, sometimes friend and foe close together with so much of life still waiting to be lived.

Most of the last verse of Peters' poem is inscribed on his tombstone with "me" and "I" changed to "US" and "WE".

SHOW US YOUR LIGHT, O GOD,
THAT WE MAY FIGHT
FOR PEACE WITH PEACE
AND NOT WITH WAR.

I dream of the day when all of us, governments included, will listen to this soldier's plea.

The second poem was written by a woman who walked over 25 000 miles for peace in the United States and Canada and who preferred to be simply called "Peace Pilgrim". The poem may be published for peaceful purposes.

GREED

(A story of Men or Nations)

There were two men who had a dispute
    Over a boundary line.
One said, "This land belongs to me!"
    The other said, "It is mine!"

So they fought and fought like two wild beasts,
    And oh, the blood that was shed.
Till one of the men was crippled for life
    And the other man was dead!

Then the cripple lived in misery,
    And he cried in his despair,
"What fools we were so greedy to be!
    There was plenty for both to share!"

--Peace Pilgrim

Stan Penner resides in Manitoba, Canada.