Ultimate Connectivity:
trying to separate peace from war
Janet Kuypers
10/10/16
Wanted to see the other side of the world.
Wanted to roam the streets with wandering cows.
So I thought that docking at the Bay of Bengal
would lead to a great vegetarian communal experience.
But
women are second class citizens there, forced to
wear layers of clothes everywhere to hide themselves...
So I
walked along the naval base in Visakhapatnam,
wandered to the row of Emperor statues along the shore —
and I
wondered why two thirds of the statue plaques
(written in Hindi and English)
wrote that most people
were Emperor and poet.
Warrior and poet. Freedom fighter and poet.
Which made me think:
poetry is a platform for peace. And it made me
wonder, do we all live in this balancing act,
where we speak softly and carry a big stick.
Which creates the crucial question: do
we need war to have peace?
When is it possible to understand peace
if we haven’t gone through a battle to get it?
Human life has always had that uphill battle,
where we all work, we all fight some form of war, until
we will all finally feel peace.
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