When The Bells Rang

It began quietly,

not with parades, not with speeches,

but with the simple sound of doors opening.

Neighbors met in the street,

their hands unarmed, and

their hearts unclenched.

The air smelled like bread baking in kitchens that once knew only the smoke of war.

Borders became gardens.

Children learned maps not by lines,

but by the shapes of mountains,

the bend of rivers,

and the way the ocean greets every shore the same.

The forests thickened.

Elephants walked without fear of gunfire.

Bees returned to the fields,

their hum a hymn.

Wolves taught their young how to sing without hiding.

No one kept score anymore.

We built homes where prisons once stood, and

libraries where armies used to sleep.

Even the moon seemed to hang lower,

close enough to listen as we told her:"We made it."

And when the bells rang,

it wasn’t just for us,

it was for the whales, the wind, and the soil under our fingernails.

The bells rang for the language of kindness spoken without translation,

for the way every heart finally beat in time with the others.

We didn’t win.

We simply chose.

And in the choosing, we remembered we were always one.