Beautiful Day

Somewhere a breeze blows across a field of gently dancing tulips. The air is calm otherwise and the scent of the flowers drifts up and mixes with the smells of a day in the country. The dust rises up as the horse drawn carriage rumbles down the road, caught in a swirl that curls around behind the laughing passengers who are enjoying the glorious day. The clouds above break up the startling blue of the sky with a reminder of Renaissance painters and the art history classes that were taken as a lark. The sound of the wheels on gravel mix in counterpoint with that of birds in a tree providing shade and a possible picnic spot. It is a complex conversation, but not rushed, with pauses that suggest thoughtfulness and consideration. That harmony spreads across the vast green field bordered by thick forest standing quietly in observance of the day. It is spring, and the world, at least from this point and at this moment, is at peace.
Somewhere.
The rest of the planet may be coming apart at the seams, because it is filled with hate and anger that has been kicking around for hundreds of years. Thousands of years. Voices cry out to stop the violence, the bloodshed. No one listens. This is because of our investment in that hate and anger. Letting it go and surrendering to the beauty of each passing day would require the kind of quantum leap that none of us seems capable.
There is nothing natural or beautiful in a world that is constantly at war. Justice for the victims of the violence is how we justify our own violence. The idea of turning the other cheek is so lost in all this chaos that we can only laugh at its simplicity. Forgiveness is no longer an option. The peace of which has been written for as long as there have been these wars has become a romantic ideal, like those clouds in the sky.
Like those birds in the tree.
Like the horse drawn carriage.
Like the breeze.
Like the dancing tulips.
Like peace.