Sapphire Of World Peace

Sapphire Of World Peace
© Surazeus
2025 03 27

Luminous phantom of the great egret 
spreads her delicate wings in doting breeze 
and glides grandly over wind-rippled lake 
that glitters blue as sapphire of world peace 
with secret message from her aching heart 
that Nature still blooms after we are gone. 

Drinking root beer at the old picnic bench, 
Sophia watches clouds gleam over houses 
where people are living safe in their faith. 
"I cannot feel bombs rattle family homes 
in that distant land far across the sea 
where my ancestors lived centuries ago." 

Tossing the fantasy novel she wrote 
into the sapphire-blue lake of world peace, 
Sophia declares with sarcastic voice, 
"The political game in this great land 
has gotten so absurd that comedy 
has been neutered by their incompetence." 

Covering her face with thin paint-smeared hands, 
Sophia cries with broken-hearted angst 
as she thinks about how her mother died 
because her social security funds 
were blocked from transfer to her bank accounts, 
so she died when the bank foreclosed her house. 

Walking past the shuttered car factory, 
Sophia climbs stairs to her studio 
where she stares at the half-finished portrait 
depicting homeless people in torn tents 
who cook canned soup under the highway bridge 
where an Amazon delivery truck gleams. 

Dipping stiff-haired brush in glob of red paint, 
Sophia paints barely-seen smudge of blood 
on hands of the banker in clean blue suit 
who blithely drives his new gold-painted car 
past encampment where seven people live 
whose homes he foreclosed over the past year. 

Peering close at figure of the old woman, 
Sophia paints the yellow flowered dress 
her mother loved to wear attending church, 
who now pushes shopping cart of her things, 
including books of family photographs 
of her ancestors the past hundred years. 

"Our spirits become part of this alien land 
when we bury our parents in its soil, 
and our words become the wind in its trees." 
Streaking white flash of light, Sophia paints 
luminous phantom of the great egret 
gliding grandly over the homeless camp.