Peace Does Not Come on Its Own
Peace does not fall like evening rain,
Nor thrive where seeds of hatred lie;
No prayer alone can heal the pain,
While children learn to say goodbye.
It asks for more than doves in flight,
More than a thousand lamps aglow;
It takes the courage to defend what’s right,
And deeds that let compassion overflow.
For peace is more than guns laid low,
Or silence falling after cries;
It is the light we choose to sow,
Where truth looks power in the eyes.
No flower blooms where hate is sown,
No dawn arrives by wishing so;
We must unlearn the fears we’ve known,
And make a kinder world take root and grow.
If I Call
If I call, answer me
among the leaves of late spring—
In the silent pulse of life,
Where crimson krishnachura blossoms burn.
If I call, answer with the courage of defiance,
With the nobility of blood freely given—
O warrior, whose battle cry outlives defeat.
If I call, answer with the courage
to risk the impossible—
With wounds laid bare, with blood
that will not yield,
Beneath the flaming torch of awakening,
Amid the fierce procession.
If I call, answer in the sunlit streets
And in the shadow of sorrow.
If I call, answer with love
from the heart’s deepest well—
In the rising tides of an ocean
of tenderness,
In the jubilant rustle of climbing vines.
If I call, answer in the song of a free bird,
Beneath a sky no chain can bind.
