Tag Archives: peace

Rediscovering Gitanjali

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For the first time in my life, I have discovered a poem that perfectly describes my experience with Truth (god, goddess, the infinite, the universe, or whatever you wish to call it):

The song that I came to sing remains unsung to this day.

I have spent my days in stringing and unstringing my instrument.

The time has not come true, the words have not been rightly set; only there is the agony of wishing in my heart.

The blossom has not yet opened; only the wind is sighing by.

I have not seen its face, nor have I listened to its voice; only I have heard its gentle footsteps from the road before my house.

The livelong day has passed in spreading its seat on the floor; but the lamp has not been lit and I cannot ask it into my house.

I live in the hope of meeting with it; but this meeting is not yet.

— Rabindranath Tagore, from Gitanjali, 1911

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Peace

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This one may be the hardest to write yet,
because words are not what make a thing so;
and sometimes, it is easy to forget
this fact, and think the world cannot just go

on praying (which is an action, surely,
yet times require a much more active verb),
but will seek for solutions based purely
on a desire to stop this mad, absurd

denial of our shared humanity.
Too many sit and bewail these harsh times,
still do not speak against our sickened state;

one definition of insanity
is helping the heartless and mean to climb,
waking only when it is far too late.

08 MAR 2003

for Ed Book

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Enough Crying Are Everywhere People: an acrostic

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Population perpetrates
paranormal piecemeal
poppycock pollution pornography.
Posterior politics
police pollen poltergeists,
producing portable priest polygraphs
pushing Plato purity.

Extremist existential elephantiasis egos
elevate egrarian elation,
eclipsing elliptical ergonomic energy.
Exception ends ecclesiastical evolution,
exacerbating eternal eventide.

Alarmist action attitude arms adam atom
around antiquated asinine archaic anomaly and anarchy.
All above attempts are aggravated.

Cessation corporation cremates corporeal capital.
Crazies, cops, collegians, Cistercians, cliques corrupt congress.
Central common clarity, clouded, cannot continue.

Egalitary earth extends euphoric embraces,
ends exceptions.
Each edge evens,
establishes essential essence,
escapes escalating ethnocentric etiquette,
exists expansively.
Evil, ejected, exploded, expatriate,
ends everywhere.

1993

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Fragmentation

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Like bits of quartz and dissolving sandstone
that slip slowly through tired and bent fingers,
the world can separate and shift, quite prone
to entropy; what energy lingers

just seems to founder, without direction,
while shreds of meaning flail into dead space,
and all hope is crushed by deep dejection
as the pieces fail to find safe places.

Spinning out beyond the realm of matter
in a maelstrom cyclone of crippling doubt,
the gentle soul seeks a haven of sense;

and sometimes, in the deafening shatter
as the pipes of peace are bruised with war’s shout,
love is the universe’s sole defense.

14 JAN 2003

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Among the Trees: a villanelle

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I have sought among the trees for peace,
and found in their shade a quiet knowledge;
there is a humbling silence in their ancient speech.

The echoes of time are within their sky-bound reach;
and to find my own small sound in their endless song
I have sought among the trees for peace.

The many years I spent, wasted, in universities,
and the words I threw, mindless, at the world, seem trite.
There is a humbling silence in their ancient speech.

And all the wild students I thought I could teach,
have grown apart from me in spite, and so
I have sought among the trees for peace.

Between two worlds I often stand, unsure which way to leap,
and listen to the oak and pine, their quiet words of wisdom:
there is a humbling silence in their ancient speech.

While other fools proselytize and in their sadness, preach,
I have found solace in the branches of another school.
I have sought among the trees for peace;
there is a humbling silence in their ancient speech.

24 NOV 2002

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