Gandhi-ji! Gandhi-ji!
voices cry out,
and the small, brown man smiles,
places palms together,
forever, now, humbly
blessing the world
with his Being.
Violence pained him.
He refused to eat
until it stopped.
His message: there
are no Others,
only Us - we humans,
living, loving,
needing a world
that is peaceful and just.
We have no idea that
it is already here
if all the hatred and killing
stop.
Now we have Greta, Emma,
Autumn and Alexandria,
truth-tellers who ignite
our hearts once again,
leading us out of despair,
pointing our noses
firmly towards
hope.
for Susan's prompt at Midweek Motif: Truth / In Honour of Gandhi
Thank heavens we still have people who care
ReplyDeleteThat first stanza is moving! "forever" "blessing" We are wise enough to recognize those whose patterns of living truth are worthy of emulation. We are lucky enough to have young ones who desire a future beyond what is already here. They are a present truth I can live with. Great poem!
ReplyDeleteWonderful work, Sherry! The middle part ("There are no others...") is a message we need to keep foremost in our easily-clouded consciousness.
ReplyDeleteWonderful respectful work
ReplyDeleteOh, we so need those young, strong voices to lead us out of our failures.
ReplyDeleteSuch a powerful power to read! I wish for more truth-tellers to stand up and wake us up from this trance~ You need to be on YouTube sharing your Wild Woman Wisdom!
ReplyDeleteI am so glad our noses are pointed towards hope and that the young are leading us...
ReplyDeleteYes there are those younger one showing they know what the future needs, Lets hope they persevere despite the greedy ones that seeonly profit in the future not a struggling Earth and oceans and forests together with wildlife facing elmination because of our blind greed.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that it’s usually the unobtrusive people who do big things in peaceful ways, which comes through in the lines:
ReplyDelete‘and the small, brown man smiles,
places palms together,
forever, now, humbly
blessing the world
with his Being’.
You’ve captured the spirit of Gandhi in this poem, Sherry.
I love the phrase ‘pointing our noses firmly towards hope’.
I am glad for these people and their approach, but I also feel that there are many incredible voices that never go heard to the masses for a variety of reasons.
ReplyDeleteOh I like this. I particularly like the hopeful last stanza, highlighting the great people continuing Gandhi's work in the 21st century.
ReplyDeleteI am riding on that last stanza!
ReplyDeleteThe prophets always seem to arise at the right time and in the right places, don't they? How desperately we need them, no matter how young they are!
ReplyDelete