Peace Treaty
My neighbor’s cow has got across
The green creek down below,
She’s on my island, eating grass
That I had planned to mow.
And so I sit and watch her graze,
And drink a glass of wine:
Would that the whole world had our ways
Of treating mine and thine!
Frederick Turner, Founders Professor of Arts and Humanities at the University of Texas at Dallas, was educated at Oxford University. A poet, critic, interdisciplinary scholar, public intellectual, translator, and former editor of The Kenyon Review, he has authored over 30 books, including Shakespeare and the Nature of Time; A Double Shadow; Genesis: an Epic Poem; Beauty: The Value of Values; The Culture of Hope; Hadean Eclogues; Shakespeare’s Twenty-First Century Economics; Paradise: Selected Poems 1990-2003; Two Ghost Poems; Epic: Form, Content, and History; and Apocalypse: An Epic Poem. His most recent collection of poetry is More Light: Selected Poems 2004-2016, where “Peace Treaty” appears. His many honors include the Levinson prize for poetry and the Milan Fust Prize, Hungary’s highest literary honor.