INSIDE OUTSIDE

Its May 16, 2021 International Day of Light and International Day of living together in Peace.   Yet we are now witnessing a horrible conflict in the Middle East.

Many years ago Swami Muktananda gave a talk:  Life is a play of Sunlight and Shadow.

You cannot avoid seeing both, but you can choose how to experience them.  I personally have negative and positive feelings that I may choose to express, and invite you through this poetry to enter the door and join me on this journey, as we remember our humanity, our true nature, our spiritual Self, and witness the material and physical reality we live in.  

As long as we remember whom we truly are in our hearts, we can play our roles with joy and love and we will do our best to make this world a better place. 

Transcript

INSIDE OUTSIDE

Its May 16, 2021 International Day of Light and International Day of living together in Peace.   Yet we are now witnessing a horrible conflict in the Middle East.

Many years ago Swami Muktananda gave a talk:  Life is a play of Sunlight and Shadow.

You cannot avoid seeing both, but you can choose how to experience it.  I personally have negative and positive feelings that I may choose to express and invite you through this poetry to enter the door and join me on this journey, as we remember our humanity, our true nature, our spiritual Self, and witness the material and physical reality we live in.  

As long as we remember who we truly are in our hearts, we can play our roles with joy and love and we will do our best to make this world a better place. 

THE NEWS OUTSIDE

I listen to the news

Then walk outside in the cooling breeze

Between the two ponds,  and the noisy bullfrog

The secretive turtle, and the colorful moorhen

The gate protecting our gopher tortoise is left open by someone.

Looking up at the bright blue sky

Slowly drifting pure white clouds

The complex twist and turns  of the scrub pines high branches

Now only the sounds of singing birds and the background hum of cars

I recall the news of death and destruction

Hamas missiles, Israeli air strikes,

Innocent lives terminated,

Peace completely disrupted again.

Three years ago I remember walking and traveling

Through the biblical land of Israel,

Where Christianity started and Judaism's roots grew.

What does happen is as twisted and convoluted

As the Scrub Pines branches.

As I am grateful for the peace and quiet around me, 

I cannot contain the sadness I feel

Knowing the violence and explosive sounds are happening right now.

The families are losing loved ones and suffering.

Yet co-existence and mutual respect 

are the true calling of all human beings.

We don't need to kill each other for food or territory.

We should not be behaving like techno enhanced war machines.

What starts and stops this outrage?

I wish we know what to do so it stops right now,

and it never starts again. 

There is no peace for anyone in this globe

as long as people kill each other for any concocted reason.

In this year, and right now, innocent people are still dying

In

Afghanistan, Colorado, Congo, 

Dafur, Mexico, Myanmar, 

Nigeria, Syria, Yemen.

Those places are old news

So we turn to the latest 

Its Israel and Gaza.

THE NEWS INSIDE

I can swim inside to the river of Love,

like the poets and saints of many traditions.

I can feel the goodness

 residing in the human Heart.

I can listen to ecstatic Kwalis

from the Sufis of Delhi

To the Gregorian chants

in the great monasteries and cathedrals

And Settle into this joy and ecstasy.

Nothing else exists in the brightness,

I can barely see the darkness

in the shadows that I want to go away,

so we can live together in harmony and peace

inside and outside.

Breathing in joy and love

holding in the stillness

breathing out negativity

holding again the peace and stillness

then remembering to choose 

the channel of light and love.

JIBBERISH RHYME

With your phone

control the drone

see the lawn below is mown

and the rose is another clone 

makes you just want to moan

those big cows below bellow

their nature is very mellow

offer them marsh mallow

and watch them you follow

its just after dawn

I see the baby fawn

its too early to eat prawn

better time to nibble corn

once again its another day 

another time for us to play

or lay down in the hay

since it is still May

and the blue Jay

is flying over the bay

so they say.

Goodbye, that’s it for now

Oh, there goes the cow

Jumping over the moon

And not a moment too soon.

©MartinStrasmore2021