Cloaked in peace

There once was a girl from the mountains

who sat in a cloak of peace

her cloak silently followed her

wherever she would go.

At first she watched people from afar

how their inner chaos created outer

how so much doing was done

all in the name of good intention.

Destruction slowly enveloped the body of the earth

land, sweet waters, air and sea

creatures, kin, great and small

and eventually, their own kind too

they shouted at her with eyes full of wild fire,

“do something!”

though they could not see

that though they could do everything,

they couldn’t do nothing.

and though they did everything,

they achieved nothing.

though they could buy, build, make and sell

they could not be

in the quiet solitude

of their own existence

nor dwell

in the stillness of their own heart

they could not dance freely

under the heavens of known eternity.

the girl realized it was themselves

they could not bear

so instead of being

they tried desperately

to fix life out there

sitting in the peace of being

the cloaked girl slowly became a tree

and shaded the people from the inner fire

of their own minds

and though they did not understand her

they sat around her

and slowly they too

became trees to shade others

and slowly the trees returned to home

to the quiet of mountains and aliveness of forests

nourishment returned to the soil

and homes, to the animals

and stars united the blackness of sky.