SUNSHINE AURA – poetry. short stories. community.

Images of suffering, destruction, and capture

Audio of pleas, screams, and fear

News of massacre and innocence stolen.

How are we to believe in peace?

In a reality where these things exist

How are we ever to trust the quiet again?

Questioning the existence of a supreme being

Who really, truly, cares — if he or she or they

Exist, then how can these acts stand?

How can these atrocities rage, un-checked?

It’s easy to think that will never happen to me.

Miles and miles away, we feel security.

Yet the truth is, this could happen to any of us.

We are all capable of having our humanity

Stripped violently away from us

Being seen as nothing more than a body

No longer treated with the dignity we deserve,

The dignity we all inherently deserve.

And doesn’t it beg the question, asked many times,

If this is happening to just one of us,

Then isn’t it an attack on all of us?

So far removed from ground zero

We want to help, to do something,

Yet retain our sense of safety, too.

Then what can we do?

When it’s so far away, and we aren’t all rich

We aren’t all capable or willing to give our own lives.

Then what can we do?

When it feels as if there is no divine entity

No swirling ball of light, or a being who looks like us

Way up high, high in the sky.

We can do what people have always seemed to do.

We can pray for peace.

Millions of us, meditating on a better present

Hoping for a better future

Wishing for an outcome that ceases the tyranny

Without the loss of any more innocents.

Some might think it foolish

But we know there is power in yearning.

A deep, sincere plea for goodness and love.

Transforming our reality, as we each get better

Lending a hand where we can at home

Praying that sincerity transmits across borders.

We pray for peace.

We pray for peace.