Wednesday, April 22, 2009

EARTH DAY (The River of Life) in 3 parts...

Part-I

The longer we live, the more brief does this life appear.
We breath-in its varied and succeeding stages,
When a day taken from childhood does seem a year,
And all the years, like the passing of ages...

The carefree currents of our youth,
Ere in passion and in disorder,
Steal and linger like a river smoothed,
Along its verdant borders...

But as the care-worn cheek grows wan,
And sorrow's shaft flies slower, thicker...
As stars, measure life up to every man,
Why seem our courses quicker?

When joys have lost both bloom and breath,
And life itself sublimes, ...vapid.
Why, as we reach the Autumn of life, towards death,
Feel we, the tide, current, and tow more rapid?

It may be strange -- yet who would change,
Time's course to a slower speeding?
When one by one, our friends have gone,
And left our bosoms bleeding...

The heavens bestow years of fading strength,
Indemnifying fleetness,
And those of youth, the semblance of length,
Misproportion'd to their sweetness...

Part-II

Running, flowing -- never stopping;
Begun as a trickle -- joining eddies, forming a stream;
The spring follows valleys -- thru rock, mud, sand, 'n moss;
Becoming mighty, strong -- widening the course.

Gathering pebbles along the way -- tossing, turning, rolling;
Toying with them; dropping each off -- then forgetting when.
Showers fall into it, and join as one within it.
Heat evaporates it, and carries it back up into the sky.

Ever flowing, changing -- never meandering the same way.
Never regretting, having been here or there, nor where.
Once Love lived along the banks of the River of Life.
Love grew amdist the floods and flows.

There Love floated, carried by life's sweetest waters.
Love rained to awaken the seeds of Spring,
And to nourish all life and growing things.
Love grew.

This fleuve was born of storms and wind,
blown to traverse the Good Earth.
The river runs deep, like molten fires that make and shake,
Continents, and one's Worth.

Love had all that was needed for happiness and joy,
But was plagued by demons,
the triple-headed beast of:
Greed, Hate, and War.

Greed swallows-up generosity, locked inside of dungeons.
Hate severs connection and teaches peoples to fear each other.
War threatens to rain destruction upon all who oppose...
Monsterous rule.

And the people were separated, and afraid, and poor.
The threads of unity became frayed.
The fabric of care, unraveled.
As love thirsted.

And War took the young, marching them off to slaughter,
To meet the Reaper, in places far, far away.
Greed steals and seals their future...
Ended.

Their River of Life, run dry.
Families witness heart springs fallen into dust,
New sprouts fail, and tall trees die.
And the hills turn brown.

And the mothers wept and mourn, and do not know what to do.
The families too are divided.
Some have more and some had less.
All was lost.

Old wounds and present injustice kept the loved apart.
But as War shook both fists,
Threatening to unleash destruction upon the Earth...
The wise turned to each other and they say:

We are but scraps of a torn fabric, but if we tie them together,
We can bind wounds, dry tears, and weave a net to carry heavy loads."
"We must amplify love, and throw off dread,
Take back our power and spin new threads."

"A life-line, held in strong hands,
A living web of shining strands."
"Make our fingers remember how to spin.
Freedom that may ring on the rising wind."

"As we sew the threads of life, the cords of fate,
We combine our love into a river, that can overrun all hate."
"We may apply justice, burning bright like shooting stars,
We can make Peace into a river, that can overcome all War."

Part-III

And if you want to know where true power lies,
Turn and look into your brethren's eyes.
So come Mothers and Fathers,
Sons, and daughters.

Come spinners and weavers,
Tool makers, potters,
Dancers and dreamers...
Fixers, changers,

Singers and screamers...
Forget all dangers.
Come ancestors, guardians,
Gods and goddesses too,

You who teach us,
You who speak only truth, true...
You who plant, and you who reap,
You who soar and you who creep,

You who cook, and you who drum,
You who have been, and you yet to come...
You who do battle with hand and sword,
You who resist using plume and words.

All unreasonable women,
All unmanageable men.
Come Harpies, Banshees, Gorgons, and Witches;
Come courageous warriors, and furious bitches!

Break the chains that have kept us bound.
Weave a web to pull the Monster down.
In the face of truth, no lie can stand.
Weave the vision, strand by strand.

We are the water flowing, we are the seed,
We are the storm winds, here to blow away all greed.
We are the new world, we bring to birth;
All rivers rising, to reclaim...

This Good Earth.


-ooOoo-


O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme!
Though deep, yet clear, though gentle, yet not dull,
Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full
--John Denham (1615-1669)

(From the poem, "Cooper's Hill", first published in AD 1642.

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