Peace At All Costs

Father’s mantra ‘Peace at all costs’
Calmed our sibling quarrels
Our petty squabbles soon forgotten
We resumed our play with dolls and toys.

‘Peace at all costs, he said to me
Standing beside mother, facing me
as I tried to win an argument with her.
Smiling gently through his fragile glasses
His eyes twinkling like stars.

‘Peace at all costs,’ he said
To the man beating his wife
During a late night altercation
On the street outside our home.
Father didn’t know the local language
So he took me along to translate
‘Shanti, Shanti’ I repeated
The man looked startled, the wife disappeared into the darkness.

There would be no war if there was ‘Shanti.’
Peace begins at home, I learnt as a child.
I asked my father more on the meaning of his mantra
How much do I need to pay for peace?
What is the cost?
‘Very little,’ he said, ‘it’s not expensive’
(He was a poet and taught life through metaphors)
His reply showed me the importance of peace
In resting our differences quietly
Letting the earth be one earth
All people be one people
The animals, the heavens, flora and fauna
Bathe in the same sunshine.

In my father’s mantra, I find peace.
In all languages peace is peace
Shanti, Paz, Pace, Shalom, Paix

I’ve sometimes paid the price for peace
The budget expanded to afford it
No spreadsheet tracker needed to keep accounts.