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Let There Be Peace by Lemn Sissay

This poem is written by the British poet Lemn Sissay. It has a message that cannot be repeated too often.
An albatross flying just above the water. Photo.
Lemn Sissay refers to the albatross in his poem. An albatross can glide for hours without resting or flapping its wings. Image: Adrian Russell / CC BY-NC 4.0

Vocabulary:

Before you read the poem, make sure you understand these words:

frown, albatross, foxtrot, magpie, evaporate, shoals of fish

Let There Be Peace

Let there be peace
So frowns fly away like albatross
And skeletons foxtrot from cupboards;
So war correspondents become travel show presenters
And magpies bring back lost property,
Children, engagement rings, broken things.

Let there be peace
So storms can go out to sea to be
Angry and return to me calm;
So the broken can rise and dance in the hospitals.
Let the aged Ethiopian man in the grey block of flats
Peer through his window and see Addis before him
So his thrilled outstretched arms become frames
For his dreams

Let there be peace
Let tears evaporate to form clouds, cleanse themselves
And fall into reservoirs of drinking water.
Let harsh memoirs burst into fireworks that melt
In the dark pupils of a child's eyes
And disappear like shoals of darting silver fish.
And let the waves reach the shore with a
Shhhhhhhhhh shhhhhhhhh shhhhhhhhhhh.

Copyright © Lemn Sissay.
Canongate Books

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