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Three Poems And A Meditation On Peace

It is the poets and spiritual re-thinkers who are the visionaries of our times. Such re-visioners set off sparks of insight, deepening our knowledge and perception of the true nature and possibilities of a situation. In doing so, perhaps these types of words are the most eloquent use of our powers of speech. Come. See anew. Let's find a new way to be together.


Each Daily Cuppa Go post is like a daily newspaper to enjoy with your favorite cuppa. There's a series of related stories on a theme, and just like a newspaper, you can browse as your time and interests lead you.


A BRAVE AND STARTLING TRUTH

by Maya Angelou


We, this people, on a small and lonely planet

Traveling through casual space

Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns

To a destination where all signs tell us

It is possible and imperative that we learn

A brave and startling truth


And when we come to it

To the day of peacemaking

When we release our fingers

From fists of hostility

And allow the pure air to cool our palms


When we come to it

When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate

And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean

When battlefields and coliseum

No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters

Up with the bruised and bloody grass

To lie in identical plots in foreign soil


When the rapacious storming of the churches

The screaming racket in the temples have ceased

When the pennants are waving gaily

When the banners of the world tremble

Stoutly in the good, clean breeze


When we come to it

When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders

And children dress their dolls in flags of truce

When land mines of death have been removed

And the aged can walk into evenings of peace

When religious ritual is not perfumed

By the incense of burning flesh

And childhood dreams are not kicked awake

By nightmares of abuse


When we come to it

Then we will confess that not the Pyramids

With their stones set in mysterious perfection

Nor the Gardens of Babylon

Hanging as eternal beauty

In our collective memory

Not the Grand Canyon

Kindled into delicious color

By Western sunsets


Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe

Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji

Stretching to the Rising Sun

Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,

Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores

These are not the only wonders of the world


When we come to it

We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe

Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger

Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace

We, this people on this mote of matter

In whose mouths abide cankerous words

Which challenge our very existence

Yet out of those same mouths

Come songs of such exquisite sweetness

That the heart falters in its labor

And the body is quieted into awe


We, this people, on this small and drifting planet

Whose hands can strike with such abandon

That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living

Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness

That the haughty neck is happy to bow

And the proud back is glad to bend

Out of such chaos, of such contradiction

We learn that we are neither devils nor divines


When we come to it

We, this people, on this wayward, floating body

Created on this earth, of this earth

Have the power to fashion for this earth

A climate where every man and every woman

Can live freely without sanctimonious piety

Without crippling fear


When we come to it

We must confess that we are the possible

We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world

That is when, and only when

We come to it.

____________________________________



UNTITLED

by Wendell Berry


To my granddaughters who visited the Holocaust Museum

on the day of the burial of Yitzak Rabin, November 6th 1995.


Now you know the worst

we humans have to know

about ourselves, and I am sorry,


for I know you will be afraid.

To those of our bodies given

without pity to be burned, I know


there is no answer

but loving one another

even our enemies, and this is hard.


But remember:

when a man of war becomes a man of peace,

he gives a light, divine


though it is also human.

When a man of peace is killed

by a man of war, he gives a light.


You do not have to walk in darkness.

If you have the courage for love,

you may walk in light. It will be


the light of those who have suffered

for peace. It will be

your light.


____________________________________



GIVE US OUR PEACE

by Langston Hughes


Give us a peace equal to the war

Or else our souls will be unsatisfied,

And we will wonder what we have fought for

And why the many died.


Give us a peace of accepting every challenge —

The challenge of the poor, the black, of all denied,

The challenge of the vast colonial world

That long has had so little justice by its side.


Give us a peace that dares us to be wise.

Give us a peace that dares us to be strong.

Give us a peace that dares us still uphold

Throughout the peace our battle against wrong.


Give us a peace that is not cheaply used,

A peace that is no clever scheme,

A people’s peace for which men can enthuse,

A peace that brings reality to our dream.


Give us a peace that will produce great schools —

As the war produced great armament,

A peace that will wipe out our slums —

As war wiped out our foes on evil bent.


Give us a peace that will enlist

A mighty army serving human kind,

Not just an army geared to kill,

But trained to help the living mind.


An army trained to shape our common good

And bring about a world of brotherhood.


____________________________________



MEDITATION ON PEACE (1918)

by 'Abdu'l-Bahá


The ideals of Peace must be nurtured and spread among the inhabitants of the world; they must be instructed in the school of Peace and the evils of war.


First: The financiers and bankers must desist from lending money to any government contemplating to wage an unjust war upon an innocent nation.


Second: The presidents and managers of the railroads and steamship companies must refrain from transporting war ammunition, infernal engines, guns, cannons and powder from one country into another.


Third: The soldiers must petition, through their representatives, the Ministers of War, the politicians, the Congressmen and the generals to put forth in a clear, intelligible language the reasons and the causes which have brought them to the brink of such a national calamity. The soldiers must demand this as one of the prerogatives. 'Demonstrate to us,' they must say, ‘that this is a just war, and we will then enter into the battlefield otherwise we will not take one step. Ye kings and rulers, politicians and war-mongers; ye who spend your lives in most exquisite palaces of Italian architecture; ye who sleep in airy, well-ventilated apartments; ye who decorate your reception and dining halls with lovely pictures, sculptures, hangings and fresco-es; ye who walk in perfect elysiums, wreathed in orange and groves, the air redolent with delicious perfumes and vocal with the sweet songs of a thousand birds, the earth like a luxuriant carpet of emerald grass, bright flowers dotting the meadows and trees clothed in verdure; ye who are dressed in costly silk and finely-woven textures; ye who lie down on soft, feathery couches; ye who partake of the most delicious and savoury dishes; ye who enjoy the utmost ease and comfort in your wondrous mansions; ye who attend rare musical concerts whenever you feel a little disconcerted and sad; ye who adorn your large halls with green festoons and cut flowers, fresh garlands and verdant wreaths, illumining them with thousands of electric lights, while the exquisite fragrance of the flowers, the soft, ravishing music, the fairy-like illumination, lends enchantment; ye who are in such environment: Come forth from your hiding-places, enter into the battlefield if you like to attack each other and tear each other to pieces if you desire to air your so-called contentions. The discord and feud are between you; why do you make us, innocent people, a party to it? If fighting and bloodshed are good things, then lead us into the fray by your presence!


In short, every means that produces war must be checked and the causes that prevent the occurrence of War be advanced that physical conflict may become an impossibility. On the other hand, every country must be properly delimited, its exact frontiers marked, its national integrity secured, its permanent independence protected, and its vital interests honored by the family of nations. These services ought to be rendered by an impartial, international Commission. In this manner all causes of friction and differences will be removed. And in case there should arise some disputes between them, they could arbitrate before the Parliament of Man, the representatives of which should be chosen from among the wisest and most judicious mien of all the nations of the world.





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