Poems of Peace: Christian Emecheta, "The Archaeology of Silence"

The Archaeology of Silence

After the last shot, silence hid itself in empty foxholes

The earth exhales

bullets    like    seeds    that    will    never    grow

Somewhere, a mother

sets

one

less

space

at the table

and the empty chair

becomes an instrument

playing goodbye’s song.

 

Peace is not the opposite of war—

it is the time between

the last bomb

and the first

                bird

                   returning

 

Listen:

to the sound of guns

hammered flat,

beaten into

                plowshares,

                        dinner plates,

                                church bells

 

The metal remembers

its previous purposes,

it dances across fields

where our children

will plant

seeds of wildflowers