What are you doing, peace?
When will peace arrive?
We’ve been waiting for you for years
They’ve been waiting for you for years
The children of Israel and Palestine
Children of Ukraine, Sudan and Afghanistan
Children from Haiti, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, Ghana, Cameroon, Chad, Philippines, Congo, Burkina Faso, Yemen, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran , Sahel, Pakistan, Mali, Niger, Burma…
And I forget
And we forget them
Abused children in big cities
Abandoned children from the slums
Why don’t you go see them?
Give them a little break
Give them a little hope
They don’t know you
They don’t even know you exist
Their novel is War and war
That’s all they know how to do
That’s all they’re going to do
Of their lives and their fate
Chiefs negotiate treaties
That their interests will not be respected
And the soldiers continue to kill each other
And the houses keep blowing up
Have we ever been at peace?
On this planet, on this Earth?
These are only victims that we bury
Never the axe, never the war
It is not peace that ends conflicts
It’s strength, it’s defeat
It’s the lethal weapon
It’s total humiliation
It’s the law of the strongest
It’s the law of less death
And the weakest vanquished prepares his time
To become the strongest and spread horror
What are you doing, peace?
Where are you hiding, peace?
You are at the edge of a lake, in the early morning
On top of a mountain, higher, further
In the middle of the sea, surrounded by infinity
Or under a starry sky, in the dead of night
You are where men are not
You are where nothing was wasted
And as soon as we come to find you there
You hurry to leave us
And the lake gets rough
The razed mountain
The dirty sea
And the starry sky
A poet wrote that we find you in our heart
And not elsewhere, and not elsewhere
Should we still see you there?
Should we still receive you there?
Having succeeded in suppressing our fears
Our desires, our powers, our regrets, our resentments
So that you can inhabit us
And calm our neighborhoods
What are you doing, peace?
It’s up to us to give you peace
It’s up to us to make peace