There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools, singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white,

Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
~Sara Teasdale “War Time  There will come soft rains”

Not much to me is yonder lane  
 Where I go every day;  
But when there’s been a shower of rain  
 And hedge-birds whistle gay,  
I know my lad that’s out in France
 With fearsome things to see  
Would give his eyes for just one glance  
 At our white hawthorn tree.

.    .    .    .  

Not much to me is yonder lane  
 Where he so longs to tread:
But when there’s been a shower of rain  
I think I’ll never weep again  
 Until I’ve heard he’s dead.
~Siegfried Sassoon “The Hawthorn Tree”

…war spreading,
families dying,
the world in danger,
I walk the rocky hillside,
sowing clover…
~by Wendell Berry, “February 2, 1968”, from The Peace of Wild Things

The headlines talk about ceasefires on several fronts –
Ukraine/Russia, Israel/Gaza, Iran/U.S.
yet they seem unconvincing.

Still, with talks of peace, drone bombs fly and reap destruction,
their fire and smoke overpowering any negotiations to stop killings.

Modern war attacks remotely
but death is never remote.
It is real and devastating and final.

So the soft rains come,
like long-held-back tears,
trying to heal scarred land
and despairing hearts.

We keep planting for the future,
sowing hope in weary bloody ground.