My vote is 2 for#2 and 3 for #11 all the bst Shalom Tova
----------------------- Tova Averbuch 34 Rabinovitz st Holon 58672 Israel Tel:972-3-5523476 Mobile:972-58-305343 averb...@post.tau.ac.il -- -----Original Message----- From: OSLIST [mailto:osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu]On Behalf Of Audrey Coward Sent: Monday, April 07, 2003 5:50 PM To: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu Subject: Poetry Contest Thank you everyone for the honour of serving as the poet laureate. Please check to make sure your poem is listed. Each person has five sticky dots .You can disperse them anyway you wish.Apply them to the poem you like best. The person with the most dots on their poem becomes the next poet laurate. Please e-mail me your choices by April 17. audreycoward @bellnet.ca Audrey Coward # 1 We have only one poem .... to focus on peace. and if there will be only one poem focussing on peace sung by a poet with low voice millions will listen as they had been waiting for to listen when the unknown one will offer her voice to the will of millions because poetry is the power of peace and peace is the will of the people of the world # 2 Peace Here and Now I'm breathing the smoke of gunshots, mortars, missiles, and oil wells burning. I'm stirring in the night, hearing children crying and mothers keening. The soft spring breeze has the grit of desert sandstorm. The night sky is torn by explosives, cut by the arc of a missile. There's no place far enough to put my heart at ease. Can I buy another chance? I want to refuse to take sides. I want to imagine a world more spacious and more intimate. I want the courage to buy homes and meals and schoolbooks instead of guns and tanks. I want to be peace, wild and fierce and sweet. # 3 Peace Emergence There is a mment When from the inside of a circle The horizon seems to be out of reach. The circle seems to be bound Only where the earth and sky touch Where the sand ends and the air begins At that same moment Standing outside the circle Everything seems turned inward And as you are standing there You see time curving away from you Into still darkness. The boundary between light and dark Is an illusion We transcend all the time. Stepping from one into another It is clear that the peace of a desert of light Is the same as the peace of quiet darkness. Somehow, from the faintest whisper, A boundary emerges, curving To mark the unlimited possibilities That are both contained and placed outside Included and transcended Quieted, and set in motion. # 4 On the one hand... The desert whispers Then wails, with the wind, of death Yet no one listens! On the other... A cardinal sings A fallen pine hugs the earth Spring is here again! On the one hand... The desert whispers Then wails, with the wind, of death Yet no one listens! On the other... A cardinal sings A fallen pine hugs the earth Spring is here again! # 5 Open space for the universe inside of you. Open space to include the world around you. There is no material separation, Only the wall built by fear; leaving a shrunken head and heart space for spirit to crouch in. May the circle of tears and fears laughter and despair blood and longing anger and sorrow passion and responsibility expand our space. Gently washing away the illusion That we are distant from each other and from peace. Peace lives inside and beyond this chaos... Reach and reach farther again to touch the edges of that place within and without where peace includes all. The time is the ever-present now... The person is whomever you are... The place is here... The space waits... Peace is... Us. The person is whomever you are... The place is here... The space waits... Peace is... Us. # 6 Peace becoming People came from all around our tiny planet Floating so alone to collaborate on making a documentary film about things that matter to the life forms on our little globe Floating so alone. They set themselves a challenge How may we show our human denizens in daily coexisting and cocreating? In a way that captures the emotioning of the thrill of the chase the pounding heart of the assailant the cries of anguish and pain as the tanks roll in stealth bombers on a deadly mission. How do we display the passion underpinning a nod of agreement a smile of recognition a friendly debate the bustle of the local market sitting in the sun on a park bench conversing with a stranger people opening space for others to be beside them? The film makers found themselves perplexed And were working on it. That happened just a few days before the event which changed perceptions of peace forever A happening seemingly more seminal than 911 or any other. When people spontaneously organised to stride out for peace. in great rallies all over our mother earth expressing powerfully and confidently that the only true axes are those of hope. Since that February day our world is asking different questions and the ‘crisis of perception’ of all humanity is that is a second superpower hitherto unknown and unrecognised is unfolding. Already seen to be the only one which will ultimately prevail is the voice of the people all around our lovely home. Singing anything war can do peace can do better. The film makers now have peace scripts and screen ploys ad infinitum. And while we earth dwellers will forever be Floating so alone The gift of being so connected removes the loneliness. # 7 remembering who we are innocent as the morning dew harmless as a newborn babe capable only of the swirling ecstasy of Love resisting (yes resisting) temptation to indulge in sorrow and pain fear and anger and reprisal refusing belief in the dream nightmare we named reality reawakening to the Truth imbedded so deeply i can scarcely reach Me ~ wedded so truly I never leave me ~ seeing Me seeing You thankful for the sweet glimmer of awareness of Who created us and why of the journey and the destination heart overflowing awed by the goodness and rightness of it all (my heart catapults with the impeccable rightness of the gift! come see it with me ~ the vast undisturbed unlimited opportunity to find our way home in our own way and in our own time always available never forced reachable only when sought truly only when all true questions have been undone each moment an opportunity to undo another) (such love! such trust! such patience! such certainty!) surrendering finally smiling i find peace # 8 While the war goes on, a moth flutters earnestly in soft spring air as I sit on the pot. # 9 Ultimatum War may come in two days Our President has lost touch with my heart maybe yours too a head, a chest, a fist What is the job of the peacemaker now? Blessed are the peacemakers but how happy can we be? how can we be a happiness for all, bring a blessing to all, to all? Bind up the wounds. Bring soothing water to clean, to drink. Hug... smile... pray... mightily. Find a way to help the wounded, neither oppose nor give more trouble to troubled ones comfort, embrace make whole again bring again home. Who are the wounded? Our neighbor our enemy two presidents: who can tell among them? Make whole give to wounded chest legs and heart and open hand. # 10 Turquoise monarch chrysalis Fourteen days will pass Alive with it's self. * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu, Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu, Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html