Hope

Hoping for peace on Earth;
Wishing upon shooting stars;
Taking chances to make things right;
Helping others, and listening well;
Making problems disappear;
Giving heart in all we do;
To give love, and never take;
Will give us hope; and one day peace.

by Abegail Samson

Compassion

Angels must be confused by war.
Both sides praying for protection,
yet someone always gets hurt.
Someone dies.
Someone cries so deep
they lose their watery state.

Angels must be confused by war.
Who can they help?
Who can they clarify?
Whose mercy do they cast to the merciless?
No modest scream can be heard.
No stainless pain can be felt.
All is clear to angels
except in war.

When I awoke to this truth,
it was from a dream I had last night.
I saw two angels conversing in a field
of children's spirits rising like silver smoke.
The angels were fighting among themselves
about which side was right,
and which was wrong.
Who started the conflict?

Suddenly, the angels stilled themselves
like a stalled pendulum,
and they shed their compassion
to the rising smoke
of souls who bore the watermark of war.
They turned to me with those eyes
from God's library,
and all the pieces fallen
were raised in unison,
intertwined like the breath
of flames in a holy furnace.

Nothing in war comes to destruction,
but the illusion of separateness.
I heard this spoken so clearly I could only
write it down like a forged signature.
I remember the compassion,
mountainous, proportioned for the universe.
I think a tiny fleck still sticks to me,
like gossamer threads
from a spider's web.

And now, when I think of war,
I flick these threads to all the universe,
hoping they stick on others as they did me.
Knitting angels and animals
to the filamental grace of compassion.
The reticulum of our skyward home.


By WingMakers

The Performance

The last time I saw Donald Armstrong   

He was staggering oddly off into the sun,   

Going down, off the Philippine Islands.   

I let my shovel fall, and put that hand

Above my eyes, and moved some way to one side

That his body might pass through the sun,

And I saw how well he was not

Standing there on his hands,

On his spindle-shanked forearms balanced,   

Unbalanced, with his big feet looming and waving   

In the great, untrustworthy air

He flew in each night, when it darkened.

Dust fanned in scraped puffs from the earth

Between his arms, and blood turned his face inside out,   

To demonstrate its suppleness

Of veins, as he perfected his role.

Next day, he toppled his head off

On an island beach to the south,

And the enemy’s two-handed sword   

Did not fall from anyone’s hands   

At that miraculous sight,

As the head rolled over upon

Its wide-eyed face, and fell

Into the inadequate grave

He had dug for himself, under pressure.   

Yet I put my flat hand to my eyebrows   

Months later, to see him again

In the sun, when I learned how he died,   

And imagined him, there,

Come, judged, before his small captors,

Doing all his lean tricks to amaze them—

The back somersault, the kip-up—

And at last, the stand on his hands,   

Perfect, with his feet together,

His head down, evenly breathing,

As the sun poured from the sea

And the headsman broke down   

In a blaze of tears, in that light   

Of the thin, long human frame   

Upside down in its own strange joy,

And, if some other one had not told him,   

Would have cut off the feet

Instead of the head,

And if Armstrong had not presently risen   

In kingly, round-shouldered attendance,   

And then knelt down in himself

Beside his hacked, glittering grave, having done   

All things in this life that he could.

by James L. Dickey

All Is Finished - Tribute to Russell Means

I wanted to give something of my past to my grandson.
I told him that I would sing the sacred wolf song over him.
In my song, I appealed to the wolf to come and preside over us, while I would perform the wolf ceremony.
So that the bondage between my grandson and the wolf would be life long.
I sang.
In my voice was the hope that clings to every heartbeat.
I sang.
In my words were the powers I inherited from my forefathers.
I sang.
In my cupped hands lay a spruce seed, the link to creation.
I sang.
In my eyes, sparkled love.
And the song floated on the sun's rays from tree to tree.
When I had ended, it was as if the whole world listened with us to hear the wolf's reply.
We waited a long time but none came.
Again I sang, humbly but as invitingly as I could, until my throat ached and my voice gave out.
All of a sudden I realized why no wolves had heard my sacred song.
There were none left!
My heart filled with tears.
I could no longer give my grandson faith in the past, our past.
I wept in silence.
All is finished!
...Chief Dan George Salish (1899-1981)

John F. Kennedy

They stood five men at the catafalque
Motionless and mute and still
Erect, alert, aware of the grief
Of the people on the hill;
But most of all the gallant heart
That's stilled, is lying there
Under the draped flag of old glory
In the coffin that is in their care.

The measured tread of the changing guard
The click of the leader's heel
And five others take the place
Of the watchers over the steel,
For what was once the spirit brave
An idealist heart so proud,
Lies now in the rotunda of the hall
javascript:; Passed by a grieving crowd.

They gave their farewells to a brave spirit
A leader of freedoms call
Cut down in his prime, victim
He has paid his all.

by Bernice Brigham

Thousands of Feet Below You

Thousands of feet
Below you
There is a small
Boy
Running from
Your bombs.

If he were
To show up
At your mother's
House
On a green
Sea island
Off the coast
Of Georgia

He'd be invited in
For dinner.

Now, driven,
You have shattered
His bones.

He lies steaming
In the desert
In fifty or sixy
Or maybe one hundred
Oily, slimy
Bits.

If you survive
& return
To your island
Home
& your mother's
Gracious
Table
Where the cup
of lovingkindness
Overflows
The brim
(&
From which
No one
In memory
Was ever
Turned)

Gather yourself.

Set a place
for him.


by Alice Walker

Loss

Sometimes we have something

Without truly knowing

What we have



Sometimes we hold something

Without knowing completely

What we hold



Sometimes we are given something

Without fully appreciating

What we are given



But that knowledge usually comes

When we realize

What we have lost



-Javan