Peace

(This is a pentina, a form which is newer to me.)

They say liberty must sleep on a bed that's bloody
for she only ever awakes from violence,
born out of the bellicose urge
for whom we must continually fight,
lest the state of war be our chosen nature.

They say we humans have an unsettled nature
and nature herself has claws all bloody.
The strong have might and the weak must fight
against the slings and arrows of violence
but still also the antisocial urge.

We understand the self-protective urge.
After all, it is only human nature.
It is harder to make sense of plain violence
or one man's glee in the malicious and bloody.
These are psychopaths we must fight.

Peace is not merely the end of the fight:
it is freedom to indulge the harmless urge.
Sometimes medicine can make us bloody
and we do find suffering in nature.
But peace tends to the absence of violence.

Yet broken bones are not the only sign of violence
and seeking peace means fighting a just fight,
not vengeful descent into grimmer nature
or the incautious leeway granted to the urge,
but trying to end oppression - mental or bloody.

Both bloody body and broken mind suffer violence.
Reciprocation is an urge we must fight in our nature.