Neighbor Poems Quotes

Once upon a time, there was a girl who talked to the moon. And she was mysterious and she was perfect, in that way that girls who talk to moons are. In the house next door, there lived a boy. And the boy watched the girl grow more and more perfect, more and more beautiful with each passing year. He watched her watch the moon. And he began to wonder if the moon would help him unravel the mystery of the beautiful girl. So the boy looked into the sky. But he couldn't concentrate on the moon. He was too distracted by the stars. And it didn't matter how many songs or poems had already been written about them, because whenever he thought about the girl, the stars shone brighter. As if she were the one keeping them illuminated. One day, the boy had to move away. He couldn't bring the girl with him, so he brought the stars. When he'd look out his window at night, he would start with one. One star. And the boy would make a wish on it, and the wish would be her name. At the sound of her name, a second star would appear. And then he'd wish her name again, and the stars would double into four. And four became eight, and eight became sixteen, and so on, in the greatest mathematical equation the universe had ever seen. And by the time an hour had passed, the sky would be filled with so many stars that it would wake the neighbors. People wondered who'd turned on the floodlights. The boy did. By thinking about the girl.

The point of the resurrection…is that the present bodily life is not valueless just because it will die…What you do with your body in the present matters because God has a great future in store for it…What you do in the present—by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself—will last into God's future. These activities are not simply ways of making the present life a little less beastly, a little more bearable, until the day when we leave it behind altogether (as the hymn so mistakenly puts it…). They are part of what we may call building for God's kingdom.

If I were a cinnamon peeler I would ride your bed and leave the yellow bark dust on your pillow. Your breasts and shoulders would reek you could never walk through markets without the profession of my fingers floating over you. The blind would stumble certain of whom they approached though you might bathe under rain gutters, monsoon. Here on the upper thigh at this smooth pasture neighbor to your hair or the crease that cuts your back. This ankle. You will be known among strangers as the cinnamon peeler's wife. I could hardly glance at you before marriage never touch you -- your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers. I buried my hands in saffron, disguised them over smoking tar, helped the honey gatherers... When we swam once I touched you in water and our bodies remained free, you could hold me and be blind of smell. You climbed the bank and said this is how you touch other women the grasscutter's wife, the lime burner's daughter. And you searched your arms for the missing perfume. and knew what good is it to be the lime burner's daughter left with no trace as if not spoken to in an act of love as if wounded without the pleasure of scar. You touched your belly to my hands in the dry air and said I am the cinnamon peeler's wife. Smell me.

Wealth without virtue is no harmless neighbor.

We love men because they can never fake orgasms, even if they wanted to. Because they write poems, songs, and books in our honor. Because they never understand us, but they never give up. Because they can see beauty in women when women have long ceased to see any beauty in themselves. Because they come from little boys. Because they can churn out long, intricate, Machiavellian, or incredibly complex mathematics and physics equations, but they can be comparably clueless when it comes to women. Because they are incredible lovers and never rest until we’re happy. Because they elevate sports to religion. Because they’re never afraid of the dark. Because they don’t care how they look or if they age. Because they persevere in making and repairing things beyond their abilities, with the naïve self-assurance of the teenage boy who knew everything. Because they never wear or dream of wearing high heels. Because they’re always ready for sex. Because they’re like pomegranates: lots of inedible parts, but the juicy seeds are incredibly tasty and succulent and usually exceed your expectations. Because they’re afraid to go bald. Because you always know what they think and they always mean what they say. Because they love machines, tools, and implements with the same ferocity women love jewelry. Because they go to great lengths to hide, unsuccessfully, that they are frail and human. Because they either speak too much or not at all to that end. Because they always finish the food on their plate. Because they are brave in front of insects and mice. Because a well-spoken four-year old girl can reduce them to silence, and a beautiful 25-year old can reduce them to slobbering idiots. Because they want to be either omnivorous or ascetic, warriors or lovers, artists or generals, but nothing in-between. Because for them there’s no such thing as too much adrenaline. Because when all is said and done, they can’t live without us, no matter how hard they try. Because they’re truly as simple as they claim to be. Because they love extremes and when they go to extremes, we’re there to catch them. Because they are tender they when they cry, and how seldom they do it. Because what they lack in talk, they tend to make up for in action. Because they make excellent companions when driving through rough neighborhoods or walking past dark alleys. Because they really love their moms, and they remind us of our dads. Because they never care what their horoscope, their mother-in-law, nor the neighbors say. Because they don’t lie about their age, their weight, or their clothing size. Because they have an uncanny ability to look deeply into our eyes and connect with our heart, even when we don’t want them to. Because when we say “I love you” they ask for an explanation.

What you do in the present—by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself—will last into God’s future. These activities are not simply ways of making the present life a little less beastly, a little more bearable, until the day when we leave it behind altogether. They are part of what we may call building for God’s kingdom.

Tenderness and Rot Tenderness and rot share a border. And rot is an aggressive neighbor whose iridescence keeps creeping over. No lessons can be drawn from this however. One is not two countries. One is not meat corrupting. It is important to stay sweet and loving.

Jonathan Swift made a soul for the gentlemen of this city by hating his neighbor as himself.

This poem is very long So long, in fact, that your attention span May be stretched to its very limits But that’s okay It’s what’s so special about poetry See, poetry takes time We live in a time Call it our culture or society It doesn’t matter to me cause neither one rhymes A time where most people don’t want to listen Our throats wait like matchsticks waiting to catch fire Waiting until we can speak No patience to listen But this poem is long It’s so long, in fact, that during the time of this poem You could’ve done any number of other wonderful things You could’ve called your father Call your father You could be writing a postcard right now Write a postcard When was the last time you wrote a postcard? You could be outside You’re probably not too far away from a sunrise or a sunset Watch the sun rise Maybe you could’ve written your own poem A better poem You could have played a tune or sung a song You could have met your neighbor And memorized their name Memorize the name of your neighbor You could’ve drawn a picture (Or, at least, colored one in) You could’ve started a book Or finished a prayer You could’ve talked to God Pray When was the last time you prayed? Really prayed? This is a long poem So long, in fact, that you’ve already spent a minute with it When was the last time you hugged a friend for a minute? Or told them that you love them? Tell your friends you love them …no, I mean it, tell them Say, I love you Say, you make life worth living Because that, is what friends do Of all of the wonderful things that you could’ve done During this very, very long poem You could have connected Maybe you are connecting Maybe we’re connecting See, I believe that the only things that really matter In the grand scheme of life are God and people And if people are made in the image of God Then when you spend your time with people It’s never wasted And in this very long poem I’m trying to let a poem do what a poem does: Make things simpler We don’t need poems to make things more complicated We have each other for that We need poems to remind ourselves of the things that really matter To take time A long time To be alive for the sake of someone else for a single moment Or for many moments Cause we need each other To hold the hands of a broken person All you have to do is meet a person Shake their hand Look in their eyes They are you We are all broken together But these shattered pieces of our existence don’t have to be a mess We just have to care enough to hold our tongues sometimes To sit and listen to a very long poem A story of a life The joy of a friend and the grief of friend To hold and be held And be quiet So, pray Write a postcard Call your parents and forgive them and then thank them Turn off the TV Create art as best as you can Share as much as possible, especially money Tell someone about a very long poem you once heard And how afterward it brought you to them

Early Morning in Your Room It's morning. The brown scoops of coffee, the wasp-like Coffee grinder, the neighbors still asleep. The gray light as you pour gleaming water-- It seems you've traveled years to get here. Finally you deserve a house. If not deserve It, have it; no one can get you out. Misery Had its way, poverty, no money at least. Or maybe it was confusion. But that's over. Now you have a room. Those lighthearted books: The Anatomy of Melancholy, Kafka's Letter to his Father, are all here. You can dance With only one leg, and see the snowflake falling With only one eye. Even the blind man Can see. That's what they say. If you had A sad childhood, so what? When Robert Burton Said he was melancholy, he meant he was home.

War is the extreme expression of division between people… but people are beguiled into this catastrophic trap by countless tiny steps of division. It begins way back in the virtuous little dissociations of oneself from the weaknesses that are all too evident in one’s neighbor.

HOME no one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark you only run for the border when you see the whole city running as well your neighbors running faster than you breath bloody in their throats the boy you went to school with who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory is holding a gun bigger than his body you only leave home when home won’t let you stay. no one leaves home unless home chases you fire under feet hot blood in your belly it’s not something you ever thought of doing until the blade burnt threats into your neck and even then you carried the anthem under your breath only tearing up your passport in an airport toilets sobbing as each mouthful of paper made it clear that you wouldn’t be going back. you have to understand, that no one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land no one burns their palms under trains beneath carriages no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled means something more than journey. no one crawls under fences no one wants to be beaten pitied no one chooses refugee camps or strip searches where your body is left aching or prison, because prison is safer than a city of fire and one prison guard in the night is better than a truckload of men who look like your father no one could take it no one could stomach it no one skin would be tough enough the go home blacks refugees dirty immigrants asylum seekers sucking our country dry niggers with their hands out they smell strange savage messed up their country and now they want to mess ours up how do the words the dirty looks roll off your backs maybe because the blow is softer than a limb torn off or the words are more tender than fourteen men between your legs or the insults are easier to swallow than rubble than bone than your child body in pieces. i want to go home, but home is the mouth of a shark home is the barrel of the gun and no one would leave home unless home chased you to the shore unless home told you to quicken your legs leave your clothes behind crawl through the desert wade through the oceans drown save be hunger beg forget pride your survival is more important no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear saying- leave, run away from me now i dont know what i’ve become but i know that anywhere is safer than here

You have a picture of life within you, a faith, a challenge, and you were ready for deeds and sufferings and sacrifices, and then you became aware by degrees that the world asked no deeds and no sacrifices of you whatever, and that life is no poem of heroism with heroic parts to play and so on, but a comfortable room where people are quite content with eating and drinking, coffee and knitting, cards and wireless. And whoever wants more and has got it in him--the heroic and the beautiful, and the reverence for the great poets or for the saints--is a fool and a Don Quixote. Good. And it has been just the same for me, my friend. I was a gifted girl. I was meant to live up to a high standard, to expect much of myself and do great things. I could have played a great part. I could have been the wife of a king, the beloved of a revolutionary, the sister of a genius, the mother of a martyr. And life has allowed me just this, to be a courtesan of fairly good taste, and even that has been hard enough. That is how things have gone with me. For a while I was inconsolable and for a long time I put the blame on myself. Life, thought I, must in the end be in the right, and if life scorned my beautiful dreams, so I argued, it was my dreams that were stupid and wrong headed. But that did not help me at all. And as I had good eyes and ears and was a little inquisitive too, I took a good look at this so-called life and at my neighbors and acquaintances, fifty or so of them and their destinies, and then I saw you. And I knew that my dreams had been right a thousand times over, just as yours had been. It was life and reality that were wrong. It was as little right that a woman like me should have no other choice than to grow old in poverty and in a senseless way at a typewriter in the pay of a money-maker, or to marry such a man for his money's sake, or to become some kind of drudge, as for a man like you to be forced in his loneliness and despair to have recourse to a razor. Perhaps the trouble with me was more material and moral and with you more spiritual--but it was the same road. Do you think I can't understand your horror of the fox trot, your dislike of bars and dancing floors, your loathing of jazz and the rest of it? I understand it only too well, and your dislike of politics as well, your despondence over the chatter and irresponsible antics of the parties and the press, your despair over the war, the one that has been and the one that is to be, over all that people nowadays think, read and build, over the music they play, the celebrations they hold, the education they carry on. You are right, Steppenwolf, right a thousand times over, and yet you must go to the wall. You are much too exacting and hungry for this simple, easygoing and easily contented world of today. You have a dimension too many. Whoever wants to live and enjoy his life today must not be like you and me. Whoever wants music instead of noise, joy instead of pleasure, soul instead of gold, creative work instead of business, passion instead of foolery, finds no home in this trivial world of ours--

For centuries, human beings have cultivated a habit of rivalry against their neighbors. This behavior originates in the fight for survival, a legacy that our founding fathers and forgers of humanity established in our society as a pillar of growth: “the law of the fittest." Our planet has lived under this scourge and conditioning of spirits for almost all of its existence. We fervently believe that our goal is immediate success, the fruit of our effort at any price, and we forget the essentials of this life. The essential thing is not written in any book displayed on the shelves of the human indoctrination industry; it is in our hearts! That small part is what we need to discover, not only to evolve our consciousness, but also to understand the true meaning of word love" From the book Say it by its name

The page of an accounts book is there for your use, like a love poem. It’s not there for you to nod and then dismiss it; it’s there to open your heart to possibility. It’s like the scriptures: it’s there for you to think about, and initiate action. Love your neighbor. Study the market. Increase the spread of benevolence. Bring in better figures next year.

A poem to repeat, either aloud or silently, will help you over a hill or on a long mile as surely as a neighbor who stops his team and gives you a lift.

You shall love your crooked neighbor with your crooked heart,” I said. “What?” “It’s from a poem by Auden. It’s something Freddie used to say sometimes.” “What’s it mean?” “That nobody is perfect, I think.” “Well,” River replied. “That’s the truest thing said round the world today.

But this lawyer, he can’t even answer Jesus’s question by saying the name. He simply replies the one . . . That’s your neighbor. That’s who you’re called to love. That’s where the eternal life is found. In showing kindness to the one you hate, the one you despise, the one you wish didn’t exist, the one whose name you can’t even say.

This is how the past interrupts our lives, all of it entering the same doorway--like the hole in the trunk of my neighbor's tree: at once a natural shelter, haven for small creatures, but also evidence of injury, an entrance for decay.

When you are the only black man in the whole neighborhood, your skin is that one friend who meets everyone before you do. It wears a wife beater and house shoes, it knocks over the neighbor's mailbox, it cusses in front of the kids and plays the music too loud, but you actually don't do any of those things. It's 7 PM. It's Wednesday and you are just walking home.

today, i am a black woman in a body of coal i am always burning and no one knows my name i am a nameless fury, i am a blues scratched from the throat of ms. nina—i am always angry i am always a bumble hive of hello i love like this too loudly, my neighbors think i am an unforgiving bitter sometimes, i think my neighbors are right most times i think my neighbors are nosey

We grow accustomed to the Dark — When Light is put away — As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp To witness her Good bye — A Moment — We Uncertain step For newness of the night — Then — fit our Vision to the Dark — And meet the Road — erect — And so of larger — Darknesses — Those Evenings of the Brain — When not a Moon disclose a sign — Or Star — come out — within — The Bravest — grope a little — And sometimes hit a Tree Directly in the Forehead — But as they learn to see — Either the Darkness alters — Or something in the sight Adjusts itself to Midnight — And Life steps almost straight.

We live in a society where every business has a huge scope. Even if you open a shop selling snakes people will buy it. Thinking they will direct them to their neighbors house.

XVIII: THE SHOW. The show is not the show, But they that go. Menagerie to me My neighbor be. Fair play — Both went to see.

Lovely and unremarkable, the clutter of mugs and books, the almost-empty Fig Newtons box, thick dishes in a big tin tray, the knife still standing in the butter, change like the color of river water in the delicate shift to day. Thin fog veils the hedges, where a neighbor dog makes rounds. 'Go to bed. It doesn't matter about the washing-up. Take this book along.' Whatever it was we said that night is gone, framed like a photograph nobody took. Stretched out on a camp cot with the book, I think that we will talk all night again, there, or another where, but I am wrong.

Living in Greece I learned why so many women wore black: a year for parents, for a husband forever, telling the neighbors take care of me, I am weak with grief, I have turned to ash inside.

Breathing Under Water,” a title taken from a telling poem by Carol Bieleck, r.s.c.j., which seemed to sum up so much of the common message. I quote it here in full:   “Breathing Under Water”   I built my house by the sea. Not on the sands, mind you; not on the shifting sand. And I built it of rock. A strong house by a strong sea. And we got well acquainted, the sea and I. Good neighbors. Not that we spoke much. We met in silences. Respectful, keeping our distance, but looking our thoughts across the fence of sand. Always, the fence of sand our barrier, always, the sand between.   And then one day, —and I still don’t know how it happened— the sea came. Without warning.   Without welcome, even Not sudden and swift, but a shifting across the sand like wine, less like the flow of water than the flow of blood. Slow, but coming. Slow, but flowing like an open wound. And I thought of flight and I thought of drowning and I thought of death. And while I thought the sea crept higher, till it reached my door. And I knew then, there was neither flight, nor death, nor drowning. That when the sea comes calling you stop being neighbors Well acquainted, friendly-at-a-distance, neighbors And you give your house for a coral castle, And you learn to breathe underwater.3

Read thought-provoking books. Give long hugs. Grow your own vegetables. Help a neighbor grow theirs. Grind your own coffee. Take a walk in the sunshine. Talk to strangers. Ask questions. Look deeply into people's eyes. Listen. Listen some more. Go somewhere alone. Listen to your own soul. Make something beautiful. Make something messy. Write a letter. Write a poem. Go to the park. Play with your children. Ask them questions. Listen. Listen some more. Make your life beautiful. Plant flowers. Chase dreams. Smile. Cry. Laugh. Hope. Try. Fail. Try again. And again. Peace and happiness come from you, not to you. Don't seek them. Create them. And then help others to do the same. You get one life. Live it well.

I understood where I had come from: from a dreary tangle of sadness and pretense, of longing, absurdity, inferiority and provincial pomposity, sentimental education and anachronistic ideals, repressed traumas, resignation, and helplessness. Helplessness of the acerbic, domestic variety, where small-time liars pretended to be dangerous terrorists and heroic freedom fighters, where unhappy bookbinders invented formulas for universal salvation, where dentists whispered confidentially to all their neighbors about their protracted personal correspondence with Stalin, where piano teachers, kindergarten teachers, and housewives tossed and turned tearfully at night from stifled yearning for an emotion-laden artistic life, where compulsive writers wrote endless disgruntled letters to the editor of Davar, where elderly bakers saw Maimonides and the Baal Shem Tov in their dreams, where nervy, self-righteous trade-union hacks kept an apparatchik's eye on the rest of the local residents, where cashiers at the cinema or the cooperative shop composed poems and pamphlets at night.

The page of an accounts book is there for your use, like a love poem. It’s not there for you to nod and then dismiss it; it’s there to open your heart to possibility. Love your neighbor. Study the market. Increase the spread of benevolence. Bring in better figures next year.

When they turn the sun on again I'll plant children under it, I'll light up my soul with a match and let it sing. I'll take my bones and polish them, I'll vacuum up my stale hair, I'll pay all my neighbors' bad debts, I'll write a poem called Yellow and put my lips down to drink it up, I'll feed myself spoonfuls of heat and everyone will be home playing with their wings and the planet will shudder with all those smiles and there will be no poison anywhere, no plague in the sky and there will be a mother-broth for all of the people and we will never die, not one of us, we'll go on won't we?

Faith Poem I don't know how to do anytthing I am trying to move mountains with words But I am an ant I scribble I drool I move like a worm whose world (words) encompassed a mile How do I rise above? Where will this worm find wings? I look in the mirror and I see filth Who is that? Where did The Angel go? Why is there dirt staring back at me? Why is the soil of incompetence beneath my nails Why does doubt paint blue rings beneath my eyes and stain my skin Why does my spine assume failure Why do my lips flirt with they sky; why do I try to lasso Beauty with such a pitiful rope? Where is the hair of Rapunzel or Samson? Where is my sling Where is my stone, My gun? Where is the weapon with which I may fight this apathy that feels like sleep in my limbs that loosens my brother's smile That kills my neighbor's daughter This pen is scrawny and hardly seems able to ink out or erase this plague that infests my Generation This Giant, This Ogre This Beast, This Death that assumes a million faces, that borrows my own.

Mara, remember how you kicked sand into that neighbor child’s eyes? I yelled at you and made you apologize in your best dress, and that night I cried by myself in the bathroom because you are Bad’s child as much as you are mine. Remember when you ran into the plate glass window and cut your arms so badly we had to drive you to the nearest hospital in the pickup truck, and when it was over Bad begged me to replace the backseat because of all the blood? Or when Tristan told us that he wanted to invite a boy to prom and you put your arm around him like this? Mara, remember? Your own babies? Your husband with his Captain Ahab beard and calloused hands and the house you bought in Vermont? Mara? How you still love your little brother with the ferocity of a star; an all-consuming love that will only end when one of you collapses? The drawings you handed us as children? Your paintings of dragons, Tristan’s photographs of dolls, your stories about anger, his poems about angels? The science experiments in the yard, blackening the grass to gloss? Your lives sated and[…]

The International Idea, The largest and the clearest, Is welding all the nations now, Except the one that’s nearest. This compromise has long been known, This scheme of partial pardons, In ethical societies And small suburban gardens— The villas and the chapels where I learned with little labour The way to love my fellow-man And to hate my next-door neighbor.

We Let the Boat Drift I set out for the pond, crossing the ravine where seedling pines start up like sparks between the disused rails of the Boston and Maine. The grass in the field would make a second crop if early autumn rains hadn't washed the goodness out. After the night's hard frost it makes a brittle rustling as I walk. The water is utterly still. Here and there a black twig sticks up. It's five years today, and even now I can't accept what cancer did to him -- not death so much as the annihilation of the whole man, sense by sense, thought by thought, hope by hope. Once we talked about the life to come. I took the Bible from the nightstand and offered John 14: "I go to prepare a place for you.""Fine. Good," he said. "But what about Matthew? 'You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.'" And he wept. My neighbor honks and waves driving by. She counsels troubled students; keeps bees; her goats follow her to the mailbox. Last Sunday afternoon we went canoeing on the pond. Something terrible at school had shaken her. We talked quietly far from shore. The paddles rested across our laps; glittering drops fell randomly from their tips. The light around us seemed alive. A loon-itinerant- let us get quite close before it dove, coming up after a long time, and well away from humankind

Wright finished with these words: What you do in the present—by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself—will last into God’s future. These activities are not simply ways of making the present life a little less beastly, a little more bearable, until the day when we leave it behind altogether….They are part of what we may call building for God’s kingdom.3

Father, oh Father, teach me to smile. Grin in the mirror with me awhile. Father, oh Father, teach me to jest. Indulge my silly giggle requests. Father, oh Father, teach me to say thank you, excuse me, have a nice day. Father, oh Father, teach me to learn. Pass along wisdom. Foster concern. Father, oh Father, teach me to serve. Care for our neighbors while I observe. Father, oh Father, teach me to love, without exception like God above. Father, oh Father, teach me to pray, kneeling beside you at close of day.

XIV: A WELL. What mystery pervades a well! The water lives so far, Like neighbor from another world Residing in a jar. The grass does not appear afraid; I often wonder he Can stand so close and look so bold At what is dread to me. Related somehow they may be, — The sedge stands next the sea, Where he is floorless, yet of fear No evidence gives he. But nature is a stranger yet; The ones that cite her most Have never passed her haunted house, Nor simplified her ghost. To pity those that know her not Is helped by the regret That those who know her, know her less The nearer her they get.

The violence isn’t that surprising; what’s surprising is that among all that violence are new ideas about serving and blessing and nonviolence. Here’s what I mean: Do you find it primitive and barbaric to care for widows, orphans, and refugees? That’s commanded in the book of Deuteronomy. Do you find it cruel and violent to leave a corner of your field unharvested so the poor can have something to eat? That’s commanded in the book of Leviticus. Do you think people should be set free from slavery? That’s the story of the book of Exodus. Do you think it’s good to love your neighbor? That’s commanded in the book of Leviticus.

How often do I get to forget my body? My body is too much with me. “Late and soon,” as Wordsworth has it, though of course he’s complaining about the world. “Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers,” etc. Thanks to Mrs. Smith, my tenth-grade English teacher, I still have that poem memorized. But Wordsworth and I do not agree on our difficulties. The world I can more or less get away from, as I think I’ve proven, and there’s so much of nature around me I’d be hard-pressed to long for more. Sometimes I wish the birds would shut the hell up. It’s not the world I can’t escape but my body. Not its demands so much at this stage, but its complaints and limitations. Its resistance and its pain.

Dorothy Law Nolte has written a poem: CHILDREN LEARN WHAT THEY LIVE If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn. If children live with hostility, they learn to fight. If children live with ridicule, they learn to feel shy. If children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty. If children live with encouragement, they learn confidence. If children live with tolerance, they learn patience. If children live with praise, they learn appreciation. If children live with acceptance, they learn to love. If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves. If children live with honesty, they learn truthfulness. If children live with security, they learn to have faith in themselves and in those about them. If children live with friendliness, they learn the world is a nice place in which to live. If we are to offer this kind of respect and integrity to our children, we have to slow down, to make time for our children, to participate in their schools. If you don’t have a child of your own, befriend a neighbor’s child, or help the children of a refugee family in your community. Often we think that we’re too busy, that we should be working longer hours to earn more money; there’s great social pressure to work and to produce. Let’s not fall for that. Let’s take the time to raise our kids, to play with them, to read to them. Let’s allow our children to help each of us reclaim the spirit of our child.

Between Strangers: Stranger, who can measure the distance between us? Distance is the rumor of a never-before-seen sea. Distance the width of a layer of dust. Maybe we need only strike a match for my world to flicker in your sky, Visible finally, and eye-to-eye. Breachable, finally, the border between us. What if we touched? What then? Would something in us hum an old familiar song? Maybe then our feet would wear a path back and forth between our lives, like houses in neighboring lots. Would you give me what I lack? Your winter coat, Your favorite battered pot? Logic warns: unlikely. History tells me to guard my distance When I pass you on the street, and I obey. But—to stumble into you, or you into me— Wouldn’t it be sweet? In reality, I keep to myself. You keep to you. We have nothing To rue. So why does remorse rise almost to my brim, And also in you?

129 Love Letter Not easy to state the change you made. If I’m alive now, then I was dead, Though, like a stone, unbothered by it, Staying put according to habit. You didn’t just toe me an inch, no— Nor leave me to set my small bald eye Skyward again, without hope, of course, Of apprehending blueness, or stars. That wasn’t it. I slept, say: a snake Masked among black rocks as a black rock In the white hiatus of winter— Like my neighbors, taking no pleasure In the million perfectly-chiseled Cheeks alighting each moment to melt My cheek of basalt. They turned to tears, Angels weeping over dull natures, But didn’t convince me. Those tears froze. Each dead head had a visor of ice. And I slept on like a bent finger. The first thing I saw was sheer air And the locked drops rising in a dew Limpid as spirits. Many stones lay Dense and expressionless round about. I didn’t know what to make of it. I shone, mica-scaled, and unfolded To pour myself out like a fluid Among bird feet and the stems of plants. I wasn’t fooled. I knew you at once. Tree and stone glittered, without shadows. My finger-length grew lucent as glass. I started to bud like a March twig: An arm and a leg, an arm, a leg. From stone to cloud, so I ascended. Now I resemble a sort of god Floating through the air in my soul-shift Pure as a pane of ice. It’s a gift. 16 October 1960

NOBEL PRIZE–WINNER, British poet laureate, essayist, novelist, journalist, and short story writer Rudyard Kipling wrote for both children and adults, with many of his stories and poems focusing on British imperialism in India. His works were popular during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, even though many deemed his political views too conservative. Born on December 30, 1865, in Bombay, India, Kipling had a happy early childhood, but in 1871 he and his sister were sent to a boarding house called Lorne Lodge in Southsea, where he spent many disappointing years. He was accepted in 1877 to United Services College in the west of England. In 1882, he returned to his family in India, working as a journalist, associate editor, and correspondent for many publications, including Civil and Military Gazette, a publication in Lahore, Pakistan. He also wrote poetry. He found great success in writing after his 1889 return to England, where he was eventually appointed poet laureate. Some of his most famous writings, including The Jungle Book, Kim, Puck of Pook’s Hill, and Rewards and Fairies, saw publication in the 1890s and 1900s. It was during this period that he married Caroline Balestier, the sister of an American friend and publishing colleague. The couple settled in Vermont, where their two daughters were born. After a quarrel with his brother-in-law and grumblings from his American neighbors about his controversial political views, Kipling and his family returned to England. There, Caroline gave birth to a son in 1896. Tragically, their eldest daughter died in 1899. Later, Kipling’s son perished in battle during World War I. In 1907 Kipling was awarded the Nobel Prize. He died on January 18, 1936, and his ashes are buried in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey.

When My Sorrow Was Born         When my Sorrow was born I nursed it with care, and watched over it with loving tenderness. And my Sorrow grew like all living things, strong and beautiful and full of wondrous delights. And we loved one another, my Sorrow and I, and we loved the world about us; for Sorrow had a kindly heart and mine was kindly with Sorrow. And when we conversed, my Sorrow and I, our days were winged and our nights were girdled with dreams; for Sorrow had an eloquent tongue, and mine was eloquent with Sorrow. And when we sang together, my Sorrow and I, our neighbors sat at their windows and listened; for our songs were deep as the sea and our melodies were full of strange memories. And when we walked together, my Sorrow and I, people gazed at us with gentle eyes and whispered in words of exceeding sweetness. And there were those who looked with envy upon us, for Sorrow was a noble thing and I was proud with Sorrow. But my Sorrow died, like all living things, and alone I am left to muse and ponder. And now when I speak my words fall heavily upon my ears. And when I sing my songs my neighbours come not to listen. And when I walk the streets no one looks at me. Only in my sleep I hear voices saying in pity, “See, there lies the man whose Sorrow is dead.”         And When My Joy was Born         And when my Joy was born, I held it in my arms and stood on the house-top shouting, “Come ye, my neighbours, come and see, for Joy this day is born unto me. Come and behold this gladsome thing that laugheth in the sun.” But none of my neighbours came to look upon my Joy, and great was my astonishment. And every day for seven moons I proclaimed my Joy from the house-top—and yet no one heeded me. And my Joy and I were alone, unsought and unvisited. Then my Joy grew pale and weary because no other heart but mine held its loveliness and no other lips kissed its lips. Then my Joy died of isolation. And now I only remember my dead Joy in remembering my dead Sorrow. But memory is an autumn leaf that murmurs a while in the wind and then is heard no more.

THE PARTY And at last the police are at the front door, summoned by a neighbor because of the noise, two large cops asking Peter, who had signed the rental agreement, to end the party. Our peace can’t be disturbed, one of the officers states. But when we receive a complaint we act on it. The police on the front stoop wear as their shoulder patch an artist’s palette, since the town likes to think of itself as an art colony, and indeed, Pacific Coast Highway two blocks inland, which serves as the main north-south street, is lined with commercial galleries featuring paintings of the surf by moonlight —like this night, but without anybody on the sand and with a bigger moon. And now Dennis, as at every party once the police arrive at the door, moves through the dancers, the drinkers, the talkers, to confront the uniforms and guns, to object, he says, to their attempt to stop people harmlessly enjoying themselves, and to argue it isn’t even 1 a.m. Then Stuart, as usual, pushes his way to the discussion happening at the door and in his drunken manner tries to justify to the cops Dennis’ attitude, believing he can explain things better to authority, which of course annoys Dennis, and soon those two are disputing with each other, tonight exasperating Peter, whose sole aim is to get the officers to leave before they are provoked enough to demand to enter to check ID or something, and maybe smell the pot and somebody ends up arrested with word getting back to the landlord and having the lease or whatever Peter had signed cancelled, and all staying here evicted. The Stones, or Janis, are on the stereo now, as the police stand firm like time, like death—You have to shut it down—as the dancing inside continues, the dancers forgetting for a moment a low mark on a quiz, or their draft status, or a paper due Monday, or how to end the war in Asia, or some of their poems rejected by a magazine, or the situation in Watts or of Chavez’s farmworkers, or that they wish they had asked Erin rather than Joan to dance. That dancing, that music, the party, even after the cops leave with their warning Don’t make us come back continues, the dancing has lasted for years, decades, across a new century, through the fear of nuclear obliteration, the great fires, fierce rain, Main Beach and Forest Avenue flooded, war after war, love after love, that dancing goes on, the dancing, the party, the night, the dancing

What you do in the present—by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself—will last into God’s future.[27] –N. T. Wright

Jt'i to- You shall love your neighbor as yourself. -LEVITICUS 19:18 Yes, I give you permission to be selfish at times. One thing I notice about so many people is that they are burned out because they spend so much time serving others that they have no time for themselves. As a young mom I was going from sunup to late in the evening just doing the things that moms do. When evening came around I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was take a hot bath and slip into bed and catch as much sleep as possible before I was awakened in the night by one of the children. After several years I remember saying to myself, I've got to have some time just for me-I need help. One of the things I did was to get up a half hour before everyone else so I could spend time in the Scriptures over an early cup of tea. This one activity had an incredibly positive effect upon my outlook. I went on to making arrangements to get my hair and nails taken care of periodically. I was even known to purchase a new outfit (on sale of course) occasionally. As I matured I discovered that I became a better parent and wife when I had time for myself and my emotional tank was filled up. I soon realized I had plenty left over to share with my loved ones. When you're able to spend some time just for you, you will be more relaxed, and your family and home will function better. I find these to be beneficial time-outs: • taking a warm bath by candlelight • getting a massage • having my hair and nails done • meeting a friend for lunch • listening to my favorite CD • reading a good book • writing a poem

•    Be an intentional blessing to someone. Devote yourself to caring for others. Even when your own needs begin to dominate your attention, set aside time daily to tune in to others. Pray for their specific needs and speak blessings to those you encounter each day. Make them glad they met you.     •    Seek joy. Each morning ask yourself, “Where will the joy be today?” and then look for it. Look high and low—in misty sunbeams, your favorite poem, the kind eyes of your caretaker, dew-touched spiderwebs, fluffy white clouds scuttling by, even extra butterflies summoned by heaven just to make you smile.     •    Prepare love notes. When energy permits, write, videotape, or audiotape little messages of encouragement to children, grandchildren, and friends for special occasions in their future. Reminders of your love when you won’t be there to tell them yourself. Enlist the help of a friend or family member to present your messages at the right time, labeled, “For my granddaughter on her wedding day,” “For my beloved friend’s sixty-fifth birthday,” or “For my dear son and daughter-in-law on their golden anniversary.”     •    Pass on your faith. Purchase a supply of Bibles and in the front flap of each one, write a personal dedication to the child or grandchild, friend, or neighbor you intend to give it to. Choose a specific book of the Bible (the Gospels are a great place to start) and read several chapters daily, writing comments in the margin of how this verse impacted your life or what that verse means to you. Include personal notes or prayers for the recipient related to highlighted scriptures. Your words will become a precious keepsake of faith for generations to come. (*Helpful hint: A Bible with this idea in mind might make a thoughtful gift for a loved one standing at the threshold of eternity. Not only will it immerse the person in the comforting balm of scripture, but it will give him or her a very worthwhile project that will long benefit those he or she loves.)     •    Make love your legacy. Emily Dickinson said, “Unable are the loved to die. For love is immortality.” Ask yourself, “What will people remember most about me?” Meditate on John 15:12: “Love each other as I have loved you” (NIV). Tape it beside your bed so it’s the last thing you see at night and the first thing you see in the morning.     •    “Remember that God loves you and will see you through it.

The Tower of Babbling Lately I've been seeing poems on Hello Poetry posted in Russian, Georgian, Turkish, Urdu, Hindi and Tagalog. If these poets really want to be read, they'd be much better off knocking on their hated neighbor's door, and sayin', "Hey, wanna to read some awesome poetry even a fucking idiot like you can understand?

This wasn't her intention, but the message I received was that there was no place in our home for my fears or concerns. Instead of dealing with my fear over my parents' argument, I was asked to write a sappy poem to cancel out my negative feelings. This was a powerful lesson, one I carried over into my own family. Early in our marriage, I would dismiss my husband's concerns about problems. When our children were old enough to communicate, I would try to talk them out of their negative feelings-or convince them there was no foundation for them. But what I found out is that suppressing feelings has the same fate as trying to suppress a beachball in the ocean-they both come out sideways. Feelings that come out 'sideways'-in disguised forms that are sometimes more symptomatic than the original feelings-are much harder to deal with. It would have been much better to just allow my husband, children, and myself to be honest the first time, to create an environment, as Fred said, that allows for the expression of negative feelings.

When arrogance calls it should always be poetry that answers thereby granting a stay to humankind's feelings of omnipotence. When love calls it must be poetry that answers bringing the sweet perfume of gentleness as our hearts pound and pound; when courage calls it will always be poetry that answers as we rise above ourselves to bring about a better thing. When war calls, poetry is the only answer. Poetry says No to destruction and Yes to possibility. Poetry is a good idea. A good friend. A good neighbor. Let's write poems.

Parents, sisters and brothers, neighbors and friends — none of them ever said a word that was worth listening to. Their thoughts never rose above their land and their business; their eyes never sought anything beyond the conditions and affairs that were right before them. But the poems! They teemed with new ideas and profound truths about life in the great outside world, where grief was black, and joy was red; they glowed with images, foamed and sparkled with rhythm and rhyme. They were all about young girls, and the girls were noble and beautiful — how noble and beautiful they never knew themselves. Their hearts and their love meant more than the wealth of all the earth; men bore them up in their hands, lifted them high in the sunshine of joy, honored and worshipped them, and were delighted to share with them their thoughts and plans, their triumphs and renown. They would even say that these same fortunate girls had inspired all the plans and achieved all the triumphs. Why might not she herself be such a girl? They were thus and so — and they never knew it themselves. How was she to know what she really was? And the poets all said very plainly that this was life, and that it was not life to sit and sew, work about the house, and make stupid calls.

What you do in the present—by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself—will last into God’s future. These activities are not simply ways of making the present life a little less beastly, a little more bearable, until the day when we leave it behind altogether (as the hymn so mistakenly puts it, “Until that day when all the blest to endless rest are called away”). They are part of what we may call building for God’s kingdom.

& they kind of probe about your future & if you have a will or why you bother to accumulate all that stuff or what you plan to do with your old age & aren't you scared about being put away somewhere or found on your bathroom floor dead after your downstairs neighbor has smelled you out but then of course you don't have to worry of who goes first though of course you know couples live longer for they have something to live for & i try to explain i live for myself even when in love but it's a hard concept to explain when you feel lonely

If I were to choose between the power writing a poem and the ecstasy of a poem unwritten, I would choose the ecstasy. It is better poetry. But you and all my neighbors agree that I always choose badly.

What do I think about my neighbors? These people. These people who have sprayed the word nigger on my door. These people who finally threatened my children. My children did you hear me? Have you ever held a child in your arms while she shook her insides out? She was so scared I cried her to sleep. How do you ever tell a child again that she's safe? Huh? What do I think of these people? Huh? What should anyone think? What should you reporters think? What should the city think? What should the mayor think? What should the country think?

Giants in Jeans Sonnet 20 Who’s the saint, who’s the tyrant, Is not determined by the show of strength. Real mark of human character, Lies in your gentleness radiant. The strongest souls on earth, Keep their strength hidden unless needed, Whereas the shallow and the entitled, Walk around trotting over the hearts of the helpless. Turning the other cheek to the oppressor, May work in a world of fairies. In our primitive world of organic apes, Turning the other cheek means aiding inhumanities. Love is the only answer, there is no question, But it is a lover's duty to stand up to oppression.

The rhythms of our bodies and our voices are not, as we know, immune from the rhythms of things around us – lovers and neighbors and friends, animals, plants; the colored, flavored sewage flowing daily from the television screen; the hum, clatter, and throb of automobiles and other machines. Welcome or not, these rhythms leak into poems. – from “Everywhere Being is Dancing, Knowing is Known”, Everywhere Being is Dancing

Once hidden in a cellar beside a corpse laid out like a sheet of paper Illuminated by phosphorous snow from the ceiling-I wrote a poem with a piece of coal On the paper body of my neighbor.

Be The Love Commandment (A Sonnet) Instead of worrying about a fictitious judgment day, Make your actual today a real nonjudgment day. Instead of hoping for a fictitious heaven after death, Make this world that you have an abode without hate. Plenty of heart force we have wasted on fiction, Plenty of attention we have placed on insecurity. Now it's time to redirect our time and priorities, It is time to be the valiant vanguards of reality. I ain’t talkin’ about being chained to the reality, Nor about keeping things the way they are for so long. All I'm asking is, we pay attention to the now and here, Instead of obsessing over tales from days long gone. So, stand up to the tyrants as apocalypse incarnate. Reach out to the needy as a living love commandment.

Instead of speculating about the end times and writing terrible novels about people being left behind and preaching ridiculous sermons connecting Iran to the book of Daniel, it’s better if people agree that we aren’t going to worry about what we can’t control and we are going to become far more intentional about what we can control—loving our neighbor, becoming people of character and integrity, taking better care of the earth.

Just Need to Be Human (The Sonnet) You don't need to be an arab to stand by the muslims, you just need to be human. You don't need to be an immigrant to stand up against hate crime, you just need to be human. You don't need to be a woman to stand up to misogyny, you just need to be human. You don't need to be a queer to stand up to phobia, you just need to be human. You don't need to be colored to defy discrimination, you just need humanity. You just need to be not stupid enough, to confuse diversity with pathology. Every person we meet is our neighbor. We cannot exist as human beings, till we wipe each other's tears.

Am Not Ready to Die Yet My death peers at the world through a plumeria tree The tree looks out over the neighbor’s house to the Pacific A blue water spirit commands this part of the earth mind Without question, it rules from the kingdom of secrets And tremendous fishes. I was once given to the water. My ashes will return there, But I am not ready to die yet— This morning I carry the desire to live, inside my thigh It pulses there: a banyan, a mynah bird, or a young impatient wind Until I am ready to fly again, over the pungent flowers Over the sawing and drilling workmen making a mess In the yard of the house next door— It is endless, this map of eternity. Beware the water monster that lives at the borders of doubt— He can swallow everything whole: all the delectable mangoes, dreams, and even the most faithful of planets— I was once given to the water. My ashes will return there, But I am not ready to die yet— And when it happens, as it certainly will, the lights Will go on in the city and the city will go on shining At the edge of the water—it is endless—this earthy mind— There will be flowers. There are always flowers, And a fine blessing rain will fall through the net of the clouds Bearing offerings to the stones, and to all who linger. It will be a day like any other. Someone will be hammering; someone will be frying fish. And at noon the workmen will go home to eat poi, pork, and rice.

If you see me doing harm to anyone, please point your finger in my face and tell me off. If I don't give you hearing, don't think twice and expose me to the entire community as a hypocrite who doesn't practice what he preaches. But if you see me doing what is honorable, pure, and pious for any living being, I beg you to keep it to yourself, this will be our secret. If by divine design my name acquires good fame and irreproachable reputation, remind those who speak so well of me, that the Lord rescued this miserable man from darkness, and all the good things that our God patiently has done to this sinner. If I look at someone with disdain or run the risk of thinking that I am better than my neighbor, I cry out to you, Lord, that you humble me and remind me how small I am. If the work of my hands succeeds, the credit is certainly yours alone. if there is a shameful mark in my biography, it is not your fault Lord and I do not accuse anyone else, but I assume my wrong actions, I confess my transgressions and thank you for your forgiveness that makes me clean and worthy. From the dust I came from and to dust I will return; I was nothing and I will return to nothing very soon. But your servant will live by faith alone, by faith in the cross of my redeemer who died that I might have eternal life. Thank you, God, thank you Jesus. Brother Pedro

The Son of a vacuum Among the tall trees he sat lost, broken, alone again, among a number of illegal immigrants, he raised his head to him without fear, as nothing in this world is worth attention. -He said: I am not a hero; I am nothing but a child looking for Eid. The Turkmen of Iraq, are the descendants of Turkish immigrants to Mesopotamia through successive eras of history. Before and after the establishment of the Ottoman Empire, countries crossed from here, and empires that were born and disappeared, and still, preserve their Turkish identity. Although, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the division of the Arab world, they now live in one of its countries. Kirkuk, one of the heavens of God on earth, is one of the northern governorates of Iraq in which they live. The Kurdish race is shared with them, a race out of many in Iraq. Two children of two different ethnicities, playing in a village square in Kirkuk province when the news came from Baghdad, of a new military coup. Without delay, Saddam Hussein took over the reins of power, and faster than that, Iraq was plunged into successive wars that began in 1980 with its neighbor Iran, a war that lasted eight years. Iraq barely rested for two years, and in the third, a new war in Kuwait, which did not end in the best condition as the leader had hoped, as he was expelled from it after the establishment of an international coalition to liberate it, led by the United States of America. Iraq entered a new phase of suffering, a siege that lasted more than ten years, and ended up with the removal of Saddam Hussein from his power followed by the US occupation of it in 2003. As the father goes, he returns from this road, there is no way back but from it. As the date approaches, the son stands on the back of that hill waiting for him to return. From far away he waved a longing, with a bag of dreams in his hands, a bag of candy in his pocket, and a poem of longing by a Turkmen poet who absorb Arabic, whose words danced on his lips, in his heart. -When will you come back, dad? -On the Eid, wait for me on the hill, you will see me coming from the road, waving, carrying your gifts. The father bid his son farewell to the Arab Shiite city of Basra, on the border with Iran, after the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war, as the homeland is calling its men, or perhaps the leader is calling his subjects. In Iraq, as in many countries of the Arab world, the homeland is the leader, and the leader is the homeland. Months passed, the child eagerly anticipating the coming of the feast, but the father hurried to return without an appointment, loaded on the shoulders, the passion reached its extent in the martyr’s chest, with a sheet of paper in his pocket on which he wrote: Every morning takes me nostalgic for you, to the jasmine flower, oh, melody in the heart, oh balm I sip every while, To you, I extend a hand and a fire that ignites in the soul a buried love, night shakes me with tears in my eyes, my longing for you has shaped me into dreams, stretching footsteps to the left and to the right, gleam, calling out for me, you scream, waking me up to the glimpse of the light of life in your face, a thousand sparkles, in your eyes, a meaning of survival, a smile, and a glace, Eid comes to you as a companion, without, life yet has no trace, for roses, necklaces of love, so that you amaze. -Where is Ruslan? On the morning of the feast day, at the door of his house, the kids asked his mother, -with tears in her eyes: He went to meet his father. A moment of silence fell over the children, -Raman, with a little gut: Aunt, do you mean he went to the cemetery? -Mother: He went to meet him at those hills.

Lorene—we thought she’d come home. But it got late, and then days. Now it has been years. Why shouldn’t she, if she wanted? I would: something comes along, a sunny day, you start walking; you meet a person who says, “Follow me,” and things lead on. Usually, it wouldn’t happen, but sometimes the neighbors notice your car is gone, the patch of oil in the driveway, and it fades. They forget. In the Bible it happened—fishermen, Levites. They just went away and kept going. Thomas, away off in India, never came back. But Lorene—it was a stranger maybe, and he said, “Your life, I need it.” And nobody else did.

Virtue No Ism (The Sonnet) What is this obsession with ism before human! Why are we still catering to ancestral stupidity! Are we really gonna let their shortsightedness, To define our capacity, character and destiny! Some of them might have had the vision of unity, Hence they spoke of peace and neighborly love. But most lacked the sight to live beyond ism, And we continue to prioritize ism over love. No ideology has a monopoly over virtue, Virtues are born of mind, not ideology. Yet all ideologies try to codify virtue, By doing so they only vilify all virtuosity. All virtues are but the descendants of love. To codify virtue is to ruin the universality of love.

Love your neighbors, stop the haters, Spread kindness, and be the creators. Of a world that’s loving, and full of compassion, A world that’s peaceful, and free of aggression. We’re all human, and we all have a heart, It’s time to break the barriers, and make a new start. To see beyond our differences, and embrace our similarities, To build a world of unity, where we all can live in clarity. Love your neighbors, stop the haters, Let’s come together, and be the regulators. Of a world that’s inclusive, and free of hate, A world that’s accepting, and celebrates diversity’s fate. It’s time to listen, and hear each other’s stories, To understand the struggles, and the pains and the glories. To walk in each other’s shoes, and feel the empathy, To create a world of justice, where love is the remedy. Love your neighbors, stop the haters, Let’s spread love, and be the cultivators. Of a world that’s kind, and filled with grace, A world that’s caring, and never loses pace. We’re all a part of this world, this community, It’s time to break the walls, and embrace our unity. To see that we’re all equal, and our differences make us unique, To build a world of harmony, where love is what we seek. Love your neighbors, stop the haters, Let’s spread positivity, and be the creators. Of a world that’s bright, and filled with light, A world that’s hopeful, and never loses sight. It’s time to stand up, and be the change, To fight for what’s right, and never act strange. To speak out against hate, and spread love instead, To create a world of kindness, where love is always led. Love your neighbors, stop the haters, Let’s spread joy, and be the motivators. Of a world that’s happy, and filled with laughter, A world that’s peaceful, and never loses its character. It’s time to unite, and hold each other’s hands, To build a world of love, that forever stands. To lift each other up, and never tear down, To create a world of love, where love is always found. Love your neighbors, stop the haters, Let’s spread hope, and be the liberators. Of a world that’s free, and filled with love, A world that’s caring, and always above.

Building with Its Face Blown Off How suddenly the private is revealed in a bombed-out city, how the blue and white striped wallpaper of a second story bedroom is now exposed to the lightly falling snow as if the room had answered the explosion wearing only its striped pajamas. Some neighbors and soldiers poke around in the rubble below and stare up at the hanging staircase, the portrait of a grandfather, a door dangling from a single hinge. And the bathroom looks almost embarrassed by its uncovered ochre walls, the twisted mess of its plumbing, the sink sinking to its knees, the ripped shower curtain, the torn goldfish trailing bubbles. It's like a dollhouse view as if a child on its knees could reach in and pick up the bureau, straighten a picture. Or it might be a room on a stage in a play with no characters, no dialogue or audience, no beginning, middle, and end– just the broken furniture in the street, a shoe among the cinder blocks, a light snow still falling on a distant steeple, and people crossing a bridge that still stands. And beyong that–crows in a tree, the statue of a leader on a horse, and clouds that look like smoke, and even farther on, in another country on a blanket under a shade tree, a man pouring wine into two glasses and a woman sliding out the wooden pegs of a wicker hamper filled with bread, cheese, and several kinds of olives.

Fundamentals of Esperanto The grammatical rules of this language can be learned in one sitting. Nouns have no gender & end in -o; the plural terminates in -oj & the accusative, -on Amiko, friend; amikoj, friends; amikon & amikojn, accusative friend & friends. Ma amiko is my friend. A new book appears in Esperanto every week. Radio stations in Europe, the United States, China, Russia & Brazil broadcast in Esperanto, as does Vatican Radio. In 1959, UNESCO declared the International Federation of Esperanto Speakers to be in accord with its mission & granted this body consultative status. The youth branch of the International Federation of Esperanto Speakers, UTA, has offices in 80 different countries & organizes social events where young people curious about the movement may dance to recordings by Esperanto artists, enjoy complimentary soft drinks & take home Esperanto versions of major literary works including the Old Testament & A Midsummer Night’s Dream. William Shatner’s first feature-length vehicle was a horror film shot entirely in Esperanto. Esperanto is among the languages currently sailing into deep space on board the Voyager spacecraft. - Esperanto is an artificial language constructed in 1887 by L. L. Zamenhof, a polish oculist. following a somewhat difficult period in my life. It was twilight & snowing on the railway platform just outside Warsaw where I had missed my connection. A man in a crumpled track suit & dark glasses pushed a cart piled high with ripped & weathered volumes— sex manuals, detective stories, yellowing musical scores & outdated physics textbooks, old copies of Life, new smut, an atlas translated, a grammar, The Mirror, Soviet-bloc comics, a guide to the rivers & mountains, thesauri, inscrutable musical scores & mimeographed physics books, defective stories, obsolete sex manuals— one of which caught my notice (Dr. Esperanto since I had time, I traded my used Leaves of Grass for a copy. I’m afraid I will never be lonely enough. There’s a man from Quebec in my head, a friend to the purple martins. Purple martins are the Cadillac of swallows. All purple martins are dying or dead. Brainscans of grown purple martins suggest these creatures feel the same levels of doubt & bliss as an eight-year-old girl in captivity. While driving home from the brewery one night this man from Quebec heard a radio program about purple martins & the next day he set out to build them a house in his own back yard. I’ve never built anything, let alone a house, not to mention a home for somebody else. Never put in aluminum floors to smooth over the waiting. Never piped sugar water through colored tubes to each empty nest lined with newspaper shredded with strong, tired hands. Never dismantled the entire affair & put it back together again. Still no swallows. I never installed the big light that stays on through the night to keep owls away. Never installed lesser lights, never rested on Sunday with a beer on the deck surveying what I had done & what yet remained to be done, listening to Styx while the neighbor kids ran through my sprinklers. I have never collapsed in abandon. Never prayed. But enough about the purple martins. Every line of the work is a first & a last line & this is the spring of its action. Of course, there’s a journey & inside that journey, an implicit voyage through the underworld. There’s a bridge made of boats; a carp stuffed with flowers; a comic dispute among sweetmeat vendors; a digression on shadows; That’s how we finally learn who the hero was all along. Weary & old, he sits on a rock & watches his friends fly by one by one out of the song, then turns back to the journey they all began long ago, keeping the river to his right.

Today is a trumpet to set the hounds baying. The past is a fox the hunters are flaying. Nothing unspoken goes without saying. Love's a casino where lovers risk playing. The future's a marker our hearts are prepaying. The future's a promise there's no guaranteeing. Today is a fire the field mice are fleeing. Love is a marriage of feeling and being. The past is a mirror for wishful sightseeing. Nothing goes missing without absenteeing. Nothing gets cloven except by dividing. The future is chosen by atoms colliding. The past's an elision forever eliding. Today is a fog bank in which I am hiding. Love is a burn forever debriding. Love's an ascent forever plateauing. Nothing is granted except by bestowing. Today is an anthem the cuckoos are crowing. The future's a convolute river onflowing. The past is a lawn the neighbor is mowing. The past is an answer not worth pursuing, Nothing gets done except by the doing. The future's a climax forever ensuing. Love is only won by wooing. Today is a truce between reaping and rueing.

Then the woman who couldn't sleep for the ache inside her ear, who lit every bulb in her house until the glare outside was bright enough to change the weather in her neighbor's dream, who reached up and pulled down a bulb each time the glass of one she laid against her ear grew cold emptied of its light, and who waited until she had drained each one - the day changed back to night behind her neighbor's eyes - for the deep ache to leave, couldn't sleep for the tips of her fingers burning.

We built new houses on the new riverbanks and our abandoned riverbed became, seen from space (we saw pictures), a long, pale line by day, a deep, black slash at night. Ode to Asa Bundy Sheffey, which was Robert Hayden’s birth name, reduced from three trochees to two. It was a family issue, his unhappy mother giving him to unhappy neighbors, the Haydens, who raised him, and called him Robert Hayden, though they never bothered to make it legal. From time to time, he’d see his blood parents—in a blur, his eyes so bad he never knew what they looked like, nor even what he himself looked like, without his glasses, which were so thick sometimes sight got lost inside them. Might he have left, or found, some poems in those dense lenses? An austere militant of reticence: Robert Hayden Asa Bundy Sheffey. Permissionless, I’m adding three more tumbling trochees, making five in a row, to inject into your name even more velocity. They’re all I can give you, in gratitude for some truths you left, in deep-set ink, on the page.

ODE TO THE SUN cracking the boughs of my neighbors' pines with your light— your first appearance in what feels like months let me stand in my bathrobe one foot in the pantry the other in the kitchen and lean to the left so your fire finds my irises I want to be blinded so when I close my eyes even then you are with me— thumbprint on the darkness—

At times … I wish I could meet in a duel the man who killed my father and razed our home, expelling me into a narrow country. And if he killed me, I’d rest at last, and if I were ready— I would take my revenge! * But if it came to light, when my rival appeared, that he had a mother waiting for him, or a father who’d put his right hand over the heart’s place in his chest whenever his son was late even by just a quarter-hour for a meeting they’d set— then I would not kill him, even if I could. * Likewise … I would not murder him if it were soon made clear that he had a brother or sisters who loved him and constantly longed to see him. Or if he had a wife to greet him and children who couldn’t bear his absence and whom his gifts would thrill. Or if he had friends or companions, neighbors he knew or allies from prison or a hospital room, or classmates from his school … asking about him and sending him regards. * But if he turned out to be on his own— cut off like a branch from a tree— without a mother or father, with neither a brother nor sister, wifeless, without a child, and without kin or neighbors or friends, colleagues or companions, then I’d add not a thing to his pain within that aloneness— not the torment of death, and not the sorrow of passing away. Instead I’d be content to ignore him when I passed him by on the street—as I convinced myself that paying him no attention in itself was a kind of revenge.

Love the quick profit, the annual raise, vacation with pay. Want more of everything ready-made. Be afraid to know your neighbors and to die. And you will have a window in your head. Not even your future will be a mystery any more. Your mind will be punched in a card and shut away in a little drawer. When they want you to buy something they will call you. When they want you to die for profit they will let you know. So, friends, every day do something that won’t compute. Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing. Take all that you have and be poor. Love someone who does not deserve it. Denounce the government and embrace the flag. Hope to live in that free republic for which it stands. Give your approval to all you cannot understand. Praise ignorance, for what man has not encountered he has not destroyed. Ask the questions that have no answers. Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias. Say that your main crop is the forest that you did not plant, that you will not live to harvest. Say that the leaves are harvested when they have rotted into the mold. Call that profit. Prophesy such returns. Put your faith in the two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years. Listen to carrion — put your ear close, and hear the faint chattering of the songs that are to come. Expect the end of the world. Laugh. Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts. So long as women do not go cheap for power, please women more than men. Ask yourself: Will this satisfy a woman satisfied to bear a child? Will this disturb the sleep of a woman near to giving birth? Go with your love to the fields. Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head in her lap. Swear allegiance to what is nighest your thoughts. As soon as the generals and the politicos can predict the motions of your mind, lose it. Leave it as a sign to mark the false trail, the way you didn’t go. Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction. Practice resurrection.

Seek yourself in the joy of neighbors, You shall know the meaning of justice. Seek yourself in smiles of the world, You shall emerge as antidote to malice.

I am with you, rafēgh (comrade) By Siavash Kasrai Translation: Darya Saudade --- I am with you, rafēgh (comrade), in wherever you are and struggle. I am your neighbor when, beside the window in the evening's gaze, you hum the people’s anthem to yourself. I walk in step with you when, devoted to anxiety and eagerness, you hand out a nightly leaflet to every passerby in the alley, with the ring of every word, you awaken a heart, a city, a whole homeland. I am with you when among the people, like a restless fish in water, you slide and come and seek, and warn the sleeping of the flood coming. I work alongside you when the body is worn out from work, but, in the fields, the factories, you keep working, you keep working. I am your fellow-sufferer when with the caress of your hands you beckon the child to patience, as if awakening a bud from its slumber I am your fellow inmate when you fill the dragging moments with forgotten memories in the corner of your confinement or in the fever of torture and the throes of anguish. No, my soulmate, my comrade, no, I won’t leave you alone, when at an unknown dawn you sacrifice your life for ideals and love. I am with you, rafēgh, I am with you, rafēgh, In wherever I am and struggle. In wherever you are and struggle.