Monday Musings: I Am Still Arriving

Please Call Me by My True Names

by Thich Nhat Hanh

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 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 a mayfly metamorphosing

On the surface of the river.

And I am the bird that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.

I am a 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 on 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 and 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.

Comments

[Grace]

Your words soothe me. Thank you for sharing your world. I pray all you have given out comes back to you at this time of healing.