'The Peace Garden' returns to the Peace Garden

On Saturday, the Village of Lewiston officially welcomed poet Robert M. Giannetti’s “The Peace Garden” back to the International Peace Garden on Center Street.

The poem was originally presented and dedicated at a ceremony in 2010, and encapsulated in wood. But rough weather in recent years rendered the work unreadable.

Trustees teamed with Giannetti and metal artist Dan Buttery in crafting a new metal memorial for the poem.

Mayor Anne Welch said, “It’s a really nice addition to the garden.”

Pictured, from left: metal artist Dan Buttery, Village of Lewiston Mayor Anne Welch and poet Robert M. Giannetti. (Submitted photo)

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'The Peace Garden,' by Robert M. Giannetti

In the garden, hope is clear and bright –

springing from earth in stirring breeze,

telling time in fruitful fragrance

under sky afire and in sustaining rain.

Gardens fine

Let mind incline

To greening thought

So long sought

So long sought

In the consuming smoke and din of daily commerce,

the serpent that slithered through Eden lurks,

ready to blight the glory, blast the bloom –

demanding dominion, entrenching waste and doom.

Gardens fine

Let mind incline

To greening thought

So long sought

So long sought

The shining red apple still holds its relentless allure.

Technology vies with nature, challenging freedom's limits

for good and for ill, the unforeseen forever looming,

the misty memory of Eden's expulsion echoing in enterprise.

Undeterred, we plant seeds of amity between industry and nature

in gardens like this, peaceful places, where freedom's chords

intone not the groan of war, the shriek of greed,

the spilling and waste of earth's precious store.

Gardens fine

Let mind incline

To greening thought

So long sought

So long sought

On either side of a river, two nations long at peace

seek the solace of the spirit's plenty in sun and in shade,

this garden of friendship an emblem of that quest,

its unfurled colors a floral flag of hope –

a hope whispering in winds across the globe,

that the glory of renewal can flow through sun and rain

to the very ground we stand upon

and flower into a new Eden of the mind.

Gardens fine

Let mind incline

To growing thought

So long sought

So long sought

Where freedom and friendship bloom

Where freedom and friendship bloom