Celebrations: Rituals of Peace and Prayer

A BRAVE AND STARTLING TRUTHDedicated to the hope for peace, which lies,sometimes hidden, in every heart.We, this people, on a small and lonely planetTraveling through casual spacePast aloof stars, across the way of indifferentsunsTo a destination where all signs tell usIt is possible and imperative that we learnA brave and startling truth.And when we come to itTo the day of peacemakingWhen we release our fingersFrom fists of hostilityWhen we come to itWhen the curtain falls on the minstrel showof hateAnd faces sooted with scorn are scrubbedcleanWhen battlefields and coliseumNo longer rake our unique and particularsons and daughtersUp with the bruised and bloody grassTo lay them in identical plots in foreign soilWhen the rapacious storming of the churchesThe screaming racket in the temples haveceasedWhen the pennants are waving gailyWhen the banners of the world trembleStoutly in a good, clean breezeWhen we come to itWhen we let the rifles fall from our shouldersAnd our children can dress their dolls in flagsof truceWhen land mines of death have been removedAnd the aged can walk into evenings of peaceWhen religious ritual is not perfumedBy the incense of burning fleshAnd childhood dreams are not kicked awakeBy nightmares of sexual abuseWhen we come to itThen we will confess that not the PyramidsWith their stones set in mysterious perfectionNor the Gardens of BabylonHanging as eternal beautyIn our collective memoryNot the Grand CanyonKindled into delicious colorBy Western sunsetsNor the Danube, flowing its blue soul intoEuropeNot the sacred peak of Mount FujiStretching to the Rising SunNeither Father Amazon nor MotherMississippiwho, without favor,Nurtures all creatures in their depths and ontheir shoresThese are not the only wonders ofthe worldWhen we come to itWe, this people, on this minuscule globeWho reach daily for the bomb, the blade,and the daggerYet who petition in the dark for tokens ofpeaceWe, this people, on this mote of matterIn whose mouths abide cankerous wordsWhich challenge our very existenceYet out of those same mouthsCan come songs of such exquisite sweetnessThat the heart falters in its laborAnd the body is quieted into aweWe, this people, on this small and driftingplanetWhose hands can strike with such abandonThat, in a twinkling, life is sapped from thelivingYet those same hands can touch with suchhealing,irresistible tenderness,That the haughty neck is happy to bowAnd the proud back is glad to bendOut of such chaos, of such contradictionWe learn that we are neither devils nordivinesWhen we come to itWe, this people, on this wayward, floatingbodyCreated on this earth, of this earthHave the power to fashion for this earthA climate where every man and every womanCan live freely without sanctimonious pietyWithout crippling fearWhen we come to itWe must confess that we are the possibleWe are the miraculous, we are the truewonder of this worldThat is when, and only when,We come to it.