Peace | pictured words

November 9, 2025

Sonnet for Lord, Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace

“Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.

O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.” ~ Anonymous(attributed to St. Francis of Assisi)

Sonnet for Lord, Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace

Of many writings I wish were my own,
this certainly resides among the best.
And while this poet’s name remains unknown,
their heart’s benevolence is manifest.

And oh to be an instrument of peace
And oh to harmonize with God’s great grace
No dissonance released from my mouthpiece
No notes omitted, wrestled, or misplaced

God likens clanging cymbals and loud gongs
to those who harbor hate within their soul.
I want to spill His love where there are wrongs –
the love that brings us peace and makes us whole.

Don’t want to be a cymbal or a gong –
Just long to harmonize with Him in song.

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April 21, 2024

HUMANITY, ECLIPSED

A Syrian friend
flees the supper table with
her whole family

leaving home-cooked meal
to decay in silence, as
bombs scream her story.

While bombs shake her house
in Ukraine, a sweet young child
runs out the front door,

glares at a gutless
foe, shakes her fist, and bellows,
“You cannot scare me!”

A gentle woman
from Afghanistan stumbles
as she tries to bolt

away from the bombs
in her path. She breaks her nose.
But her lungs still breathe.

More friends from Ukraine
had no light, no heat for months.
This, in my friend’s words:

“Life is divided
into before and after
war came to our house.”

In shadows, evil
slinks across the globe beneath
our sentinel moon.

© Marie Elena Good, 2024

These are just a few of the stories of war-weary refugee friends of mine. These few don’t express but an infinitesimal spec of the havoc war wreaked on our planet in the time it took me to pen this poem. What we humans are willing to do to fellow humans is unspeakably horrific.

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January 3, 2021

A PLEA TO MY GOD

It’s time to unveil
a new year. Inhale fresh air,
and care for what’s there.

Let my voice take wing
to sing in the key of peace.
May mercy increase

where now there are chains.
Where cold-heartedness remains,
may warmth fill my veins.

Let love with no caps
gush compassion, not rationed
in morsels or scraps.

Make me teachable
and easily reachable
when You wish to speak.

Please help me seek You.
In new ways through this new year,
help me feel You near.

© Marie Elena Good, 2021

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June 7, 2020

2020 VISION

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

In my imagination,
I see the eyes of a nation
opening
focusing
noticing
seeing each human being,
and agreeing their wellbeing
gives meaning to our own
as we bemoan our past
and hold steadfast
to our bloodstream’s dreams
of fairness for all
that made landfall
in 2020 –
not for the goal of the many,
but the whole of humanity.

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October 21, 2019

Hocking Hills Autumn 2019 Day 1

Photo from Frontier Log Cabins. Click link for more info.

Back to our cabin,
where I found my heart waiting
on the front porch swing.

#57519

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October 6, 2019

A HOLY HUSH

Photo by Keith R. Good

Sleep came,
but the dreams that accompanied it
were disturbing
and all I could do was pray for peace
as worry for her threatened to devour me.
Disquiet was my life for months

and months

and months.

Then one night I found myself
walking a path of undisturbed snow.
The moon was my only light –
just enough to illumine the path,
glisten against the falling snowflakes,
and reveal the immense evergreen forest.
There was silence,
save the calming crunch
of snow beneath my feet.
I walked the breathtaking beauty all night,
accompanied by One who knows me intimately –

the only One who offers stillness
in the midst of turbulence.

“… and he said to the sea, ‘Peace, be still.’ And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.” ~ Mark 4:39

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January 9, 2019

And It Makes Me Wonder

statue-of-liberty-981754_640

There’s a man who is sure
That he glitters like gold
And he’s building a wall for safekeeping.
In the office he sought
When he got there he thought
With a word, he could get what he came for.
Oh oh oh oh, and will he build the wall he had promised?

When he speaks, is there truth?
See, I want to be sure,
‘cause I sense that his words have no meanings.
And these memes that we share,
They don’t mean that we care.
Sometimes ALL of our thoughts are misgiving.

Oooh, it makes me wonder.
Oooh, it makes me wonder.

There’s a feeling I get
That’s too much like a threat
That’s expressed as “kind” words are escaping.
Through his acts have I seen
Rings of smoke through the mirrors,
And pained faces of those who are seeking.

Oooh, it makes me wonder.
Ooh, it really makes me wonder.

And it’s whispered that soon there will come a new moon,
And the piper will be charged with treason.
Then a new day will dawn
Talk of walls will be gone,
But will we have the peace we’ve sought after?

Could be a hustler in our Whitehouse,
But how do I know?
It’s just an inkling from what I’ve seen.
Yes, I have seen our politics spun
And in the long run
It’s all talk to spin the road we’re on,
And it makes me wonder.

My head is aching, and I can’t stand
This hate in my land.
The piper’s calling us to join him.
Dear Lady, do I hear you weeping,
And do I see
Indignant tears on the whispering wind?

And as we contemplate our walls,
Do we not stand to lose our soul?
Is our safekeeping worth it all?
Oh Lady shine through harbor’s fog!
Let dialogue be kind and true.
And let us listen very hard,
And tune our heart-song from our past,
When liberty was welcoming
When we were hailed as brave and free,
And we hadn’t closed our stairway to heaven.

Please note: Some phrases from the original Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin were intentionally used in this poem.

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November 23, 2018

Dream the Love, and Love the Dream (A Wrapped Refrain)

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Photo by Keith R. Good

When poets sigh, they sigh for love –
In awe of fragrant fruit thereof.
To spill the heart from breast to page
Release it from its living cage –
Free fragrant ache to fill the soul, and reach the sky,
And my-oh-my, breathe in love’s scent, when poets sigh.

And how I dream our words would fill
Our world with peace. With love. Goodwill.
And I believe that words can heal
And so I’ll write, and speak. Appeal
To peacemakers whose soothing words are as a stream
In moonlit gleam. It’s how I pray, and how I dream.

When poets write, they seek within
To find the space where dreams begin
Where love writes sighs, and peace prevails
Where words can heal, and goodwill sails
To span the breadth of all that’s true, and there alight.
We’ll dream the love, and love the dream, when poets write.

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