Sagarmatha, southern face of Mt. Everest
photo by John McConnico, Associated Press
From the swirling mist clouding the peaks
at the Roof of the World,
where the snow leopard stealthily pads
along the snowy cliffs,
to the monastery halls of Dharamsala
where the Ocean of Wisdom
prays for Tibet to be free,
My beloved Wickanninish Beach
wave upon wave
ceaselessly rolling in,
in endless cycle,
through all the days of Time,
from deep within the forested slopes
of the Andes,
where the Enlightened Masters
hold the kundalini of the earth
in prayerful reverence,
where the Dene follow the Old Ways,
as the New Ways wreak havoc
with the permafrost,
tundra and icebergs melting faster than
starving polar bears can swim,
drowning in their ever more frantic
search for food,
laid waste for Profit,
as the forests fall
and the Earth
heats up year by year,
Sudan refugees by photographer Sebastio Salgrado
to the deserts of the Sudan,
where people die for lack of food and water,
while their brothers and sisters
around the world
turn their faces away,
feeling helpless,
and the governments bog down
in allotment and distribution problems,
to the camps of the child soldiers,
who know only that life is hell
from which there is little hope
of deliverance,
to the "theaters" of war,
hatred and bombs,
gunfire and peril,
in the streets where children used to play.........
Peace Planet Hands from
and not one of us can exist
without all the others,
because when a tree falls here,
the earth heats there,
when an iceberg melts there,
sea life dies here,
when humankind hates humankind
and forgets our shared humanity,
my heart lifts and shatters
ten million times a day:
lifts at the unutterable beauty of this world,
and breaks at how mankind lives
in our suffering Eden.
Because Planet Earth
is my neighborhood,
and I am a
a planetary pilgrim,
I love it
and ache for it,
every day.
