peace. It is the last word that the Egyptian poet Salah Jaheen uses in his poem, Milk tea (Milk tea(1955), which was published in his first poetry collection Peaceful words (A Word of Peace, 1955).
Sitting at the breakfast table in the pleasant hours of the morning, the poem describes the scene of two lovers contemplating the slow ritual of drinking tea with milk together. They feel and imbibe the feeling of peace; The feeling of taking a deep exhale after sipping your favorite beverage and finally feeling, if only for a short, fleeting moment, that maybe this is peace. Maybe this is peace now, even if it won’t stay peaceful for long.
Born in Shubra, Cairo in 1930, Jaheen witnessed the political developments and turmoil that led to the 1952 revolution and Egyptian independence. Jaheen’s life was marked by turmoil, and peace was never a word that could be simply written on a page easily or carelessly.
Writing the word “peace” in a poem may seem too simple for a reality in which it is not.
However, for Jahin, there was more to peace than the mere absence of war or instability. There was more to it than just a pipe dream or an impossible ideal, one that could only be achieved in a world where everything was as it should be.
In Jahin’s words, there is a kind of peace that comes alive and begins to breathe when two people and two hearts meet with love and compassion. In the poem, peace is born and reborn through the small moments of gentleness that one person generously gives to another.
Even if those moments fade, they have the ability to be reborn and return whenever love finds its way back into a person’s heart.
Love is peace. Mercy is peace. Kindness is peace. Each of these qualities, on their own, has the power to create small, simple moments of peace. It may not be enough to calm the chaos of the world around us, but it can still form an inner world where there is peace, like the peaceful world shared between two lovers.
The inner world shared between the two lovers, as they drink tea with milk in unison and harmony, is the same world that exists within the walls of their bedroom. They don’t have to make love to prove that they are in love. Instead, it is in their presence together, and in the way they move through the ordinary moments of everyday life, that love reveals itself.
Drinking tea and milk together becomes an act of love in itself, and within this love they find a sense of pure peace.
As the Egyptian poet Ahmed Hegazy said He notices In his article about Jahin’s poetry, “The poet here is not just talking about two people eating breakfast… Rather, he is talking about a world in which the bride and groom have become one person.”
A world in which the bride and groom become one is, ultimately, a world that can be summed up in one word: peace. As Hegazy He writes“One word becomes, as it began, a word of peace.”
The emotional impact of a poem lies in what is not said, not in what is said. It is found in the actions themselves and not in any declaration, just as love and peace are not experienced through words, but through the actions that give them meaning.
It can be felt through the breakfast table, milk tea, wedding furniture and wedding rings. Each object exists in its own right, yet together they create a visual and sensual image for the two lovers.
Jahin completely avoids ornate vocabulary or elaborate metaphors. The poem seems almost like a list of notes, but these simple notes and small movements gradually build up, building emotions one by one. The climax at the end is one word: peace.
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