I Too Often Forget
I too often forget how simple it can be
to listen to others, rather than tell them
what I think is true.
I too often forget how easy it is
to criticize and complain;
forget, when I am criticizing
and complaining, that the only thing
I am really listening to
are my own criticisms and complaints.
Truth be told, I can even forget
how easy it is to trample on
other people’s gardens, especially
when I am wearing shoes that are three,
maybe even four sizes too big.
Sometimes, though, if I am fortunate,
if I am not lost in my own forgetting,
I will remember once again
…………………the flight of the hawk,
how it soars with such openness,
….with such grace,
how the only thing it carries on its wings
is the lightness of its own being,
………………the quiet beauty of its flight.
And in the stillness of that moment,
I am left alone with the life I am living,
with the choices I have made,
left to remember how simple it is
to be gentle and patient,
how easy it is to be kind.
The Fateful Shaping of a World
There are things that can live only in darkness,
things that prey upon our doubt and our fear.
They have no power if we do not listen to them,
if we are able to illumine the darkness
with an inner light.
I.
We live in a time infused with deception:
…we breathe it in the air;
it fills our bodies, veils our minds,
…flows into our words,
as if it were our mother tongue.
Deception prides itself on remaining
unseen, and in just that way,
it will continue to force itself upon us.
In just that way, it will be believed.
It can all seem so overwhelming, all so present:
the fateful shaping of a world
…through the cold machinations
…of wealth and power,
through an insatiable appetite.
Those who rule
have used their power as a weapon,
set us one against another,
held us in place with fear.
They have told us
what we are allowed to do,
told us what we are allowed to think,
and we have been left on our own
to find wherein it all lies our salvation,
and wherein lies the shamefulness
of the deceit.
Submerge a world in hatred,
submerge a world in fear,
and it becomes fertile ground
for such a power to prevail.
And what other than courage
can stand against it?
What other than courage
can find the strength
to see through the deception,
see through the hypocrisies and the lies.
What other than courage
can resist all the cruel divisions,
all that has drawn lines across our hearts,
…turned our minds from knowing
we are so much more than our hatred,
so much more than our isolation and our fear.
II.
Travel the same road and you will arrive
at the same destination,
regardless of who is driving
or the colours given to the vehicle used.
Look deep enough, and all
that lies beneath the surface,
by its very nature will be exposed.
There is a coldness to power
that preys upon others,
whatever name it chooses to hide behind.
There is a coldness to greed.
I have found it does no good to turn away,
as if it did not matter, as if I could not see.
Through all the brutality, all the lies,
all the avarice and the rage,
we spend our souls,
scatter the pieces far and wide
as if they were mere currency.
They are not mere currency.
They are the essence of our lives.
What was once the purest of lights can darken,
become dim, and then dimmer,
until the moment it becomes no light at all.
This is not logic I am offering
with these words, for I am well aware,
the rationales of the material world
will easily refute them.
It is a longing I give to you now,
a sorrow no logic can contain.
There are no weapons that have ever been able
to dissolve the fear within us,
no army is ever able to free the heart
hardened by hatred,
the mind that seeks only its own gain.
If we cannot,
within our own hearts,
rise above the brutality,
rise above the lies,
the avarice and the rage,
if we cannot weep for all
that has been done to the children,
all that has been done to the animals,
all that has been done to the Earth,
then what future are we really seeking,
and what is it that guides us on our way?
III.
We have listened well to the external voice.
For so long we have been taught
to believe no other.
For so long
we have been deceived.
There is no external authority
able to mend the countless lives
that have been broken,
no external authority
with the power to bring together
all that has been scattered,
all that has been torn or cast away.
When the sacredness of all life
becomes visible within the human heart,
the mind will follow, and the illusion
of separation, the illusion of enemies, of war
will no longer have such a stranglehold upon us.
Another’s breath becomes our breath,
Another’s pulse becomes our own.
In Darkness, We Walk
In darkness, we walk the same shore,
you and I, giving human measure
to the borders of sand and rock,
..wind and water,
giving human measure to our lives.
In darkness, I stumble and fall;
I reach for your hand, you reach for mine.
Silently, the deep water beckons,
its movement a swell of invisibility within me.
There is no language to speak this mystery,
no human measure to contain it.
There is only movement, come like wind,
come like water upon the rhythm of the tide.
Silently, I reach to touch it; it reaches for me.
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