The Wise Man Builds Again Poem by Romella Kitchens

Peace should not be a difficult concept attainment.
The difficulty should be violence.

Once, while shopping in Whole Foods in Pittsburgh,
I saw two Tibetan monks in line with an American
sponsor buying food for their American home.

Their robes were red like the wings of cardinals.
Their souls were pure like soap mixed with honey.

Two men without a homeland any longer of their own.
I watched them learning new ways, while violence was
so old you would think it would empty out like flood water
back into the rivers and wash away.

Peace has the capacity to generate, grow, change.
It tends its garden. It prays. It sprouts up green on

urban window ledges and in meditations, the souls of
those welcoming it again and again.

The monks left the store quietly, my eyes still in awe
of them.

As the door to the store closed in their wake, I felt this
gold bell of humanity chiming in my soul.