By Thich Nhat Hanh

Peace

They woke me this morning
to tell me my brother had been killed in battle.
Yet in the garden
a new rose, with moist petals uncurling,
blooms on the bush.
And I am alive,
still breathing the fragrance of roses and dung,
eating, praying, and sleeping.
When can I break my long silence?
When can I speak the unuttered words that are choking me?

This antiwar poem was written in Vietnam in 1964, when to pronounce the word “peace” meant you were a “communist,” helping the communists, or just defeatist. When Pham Duy, a well-known musician, put this poem to music, he used the title “A Dream.”