Notes About The Poem
© UNICEF/Ashley Gilbertson
A ten-year-old boy walks in the courtyard in front of his family’s apartment in central Chernihiv, Ukraine, which was destroyed in an air strike.
Why Peace
On fields where shadows of old battles lie,
We find no lasting peace, but watch it die.
The broken promises, a hollow sound,
As ancient rights are buried in the ground.
With polished words and flags of gentle hue,
The world proclaims what it’s resolved to do,
While buried deep beneath the legal text,
The human spirit suffers and is vexed.
The children ask their questions like a prayer,
For freedom’s breath and for a world to share.
But gilded cages and an iron fist
Maintain the order, and the rights are missed.
For peace is not the absence of a storm,
But justice’s presence in a truer form.
Not silence bought with fear and grim despair,
But liberty that fills the common air.
So let the verse, with fragile, measured rhyme,
Recall the cost throughout the march of time.
That peace, to stand, must rise from human worth,
And claim, for all, their birthright on this Earth.
Not with the sword, but with a voice unbound,
Until the equal, righteous truths are found.
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