[center]Please call me by my true names
Don't say that I will depart
tomorrow --even today
I am still arriving.
Look deeply: every second
I am arriving to be a bud
on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with
still-fragile wings, learning
to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in
the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding
itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order
to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart
is the birth and death
of all that is alive.
I am the Mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And the bird that swoops
down to swallow the mayfly.
I am the frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.
I am the child in Uganda,
all skin and bones, my legs
as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda
I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee om a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing an loving.
I am a member of the Politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his "debt of blood"to my people
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.
My joy is like Spring, so warm it
makes flowers bloom all over
the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.
Please call me by my true
names, so I can hear all
my cries and my laughter
at once, so I can see that
my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart
can be left open,
the door of compassion.
Thich Nhat Hanh [/center]