Learning | Marlene McNew

Learning to Wage Peace

A small child hid
In a corner of himself
Wrapped into a tight ball
He backed further
Into the corner, as if, in danger.

I felt his presence
before I saw him.
“Please don’t hurt me,”
His contorted body
seemed to say.

I know this child,
I whispered to myself,
Feeling the truth.
She is he is me is we
Stuck everywhere
Except in the present moment.

How did we lose our way?
Please, stay within reach.
I dream of ease
Wrapping us cocoon safe
In the trust that grows
In the light of day.

Daily I pray to find
The path along which
Peace may be waged
moment by moment
in all of our hearts.
May we find the courage
And strength to be true
to ourselves.

Marlene McNew…

…is a poet and artist who lives in Northern California. She is an earnest Buddhist, mother of a 14-year-old Border Collie named Abby. She was at various times an avid skier, a competitive ballroom dancer, and had a 20+year career in Accounting/Finance until Parkinson’s Disease cut it short. She has produced 21 YouTube poem-videos, mainly on skiing and Parkinson’sDisease. She had two of her poems published in the DeAnza Junior College Literary Magazine. She also had three of her undergrad papers on women in history published by the U.C.-Davis Women’s Center (out of print:“The Oppression of Citizen Women in Classical Athens,” “Noblewomen in Renaissance and Reformation England,” and “The Plantation Woman Before and After the Civil War”)

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