…they shall beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation;
neither shall they learn war any more. -Isaiah
The typhoon is unspooling, and the quake’s magnitude
is dropping and the coral is blushing again, and the ash-coloured
earth is regreening, and our withered souls are filling with new sap.
In the mouths of usual enemies, curses have backfired from timely
blessings. And bullets are repenting and retreating to their barrels, and
bombs, born-again, are helium balloons. The cylinders of war have seized
like my rusted-out Rambler. Battle tanks have changed into red wagons
and missiles have fallen silent in their silos and the muzzles of canons
are refusing to report. The ammunition is dissolving and running back
into the seams of ore where new water is percolating up into blooming
deserts and soldiers are shedding their combat camo and dancing uniformly
naked. And the Pentagon is a chicken pen and the CIA is a farmer’s market
and NATO and CSTO are lying prostrate in the abbacy of a meadow.
Everywhere, ruins are rising and assembling into fresh fittings.
Maps are losing their borders. Politicians are climbing sycamore trees
to catch the sight of truth, and the sun himself has cast out the military-
industrial complex and overturned the rapacious tables of corporations.
A great dawn of healing is upon the city. Cancers are mere memories,
and your friend has come back from her dying, her hair is returning,
darkening and thickening like the shining mane of beauty.
And the new world has come, reminiscent of the old world,
but with the consciousness of original goodness.
My son calls me a Hippie, but the challenges with Capitalism can no longer be hidden because we are too entrenched into it
Yes, a shift in consciousness is a powerful force for change
Thanks for this, Ananda. Keep wearing flowers.
Radical optimism, Stephen. Thank you for these thoughts I read as the journalist in the background reports on the atrocities in Gaza
“Radical optimism,” I prefer that to utopianism. Thank you for responding, Kirk.
I find myself breathing deeply as I read this, Stephen. And maybe with the hint of a tear in my eye for the dream. Wouldn’t it be so wonderful to live in such a world? Sigh….(and I appreciate the nod to climbing the sycamore tree to catch site of the truth).
Thank you, Ann. I too hope such a dream might become a reality. Thank you for writing.
And so we pray
Thanks, Mike. Amen.
May it be so. I too like that “radical optimism” label.
Thanks, Dan!
Let’s plant many more sycamore trees – there was one in the gap somewhere in England that someone cut down!
Agreed. Thanks Sam.