What is the World You Want to Wake Up To?

Photo: (c) Jamie K. Reaser

What is the world that you want to wake up to?

I want mine to be colorful and rich in texture.

I want to hear children laughing in the woods

as leaves crackle under the scamper of bare feet.

I want to sit in awe of the faces of people

who have grown old enough and wise enough

to wear their storylines.

I want to be able to sit on park benches with

my friends in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran

and so many other places

and hold them close,

to cry on their shoulders,

and to wipe their tears.

I want to hold food to my mouth and know that

it is nourishment for this, my body.

It is the only body that I have.

And it is my body. Of this I am certain.

And it is a most sacred temple, not a commodity

to be traded in the market places or

put to work in order to carry out

deeds that indefinitely burden the soul.

I want to be awakened at dawn by the voices of

tiny birds that traverse continents

and be wooed to sleep by streams and owls

and coyotes who are telling me that

they have nothing to fear of my kind.

I want to have faith that the young ones who

will be making decisions when I am weary and

wrinkled are well educated in the school of

worldly experience, and dearly love

this planet that is their inheritance.

I want to call you my Brother,

and you my Sister,

and have no doubt that you see me

as family irrespective of our

differences.

I want us to live together in wonderment

of this heart-cracking world,

not in terror of the skies or the oceans

or the earth beneath our feet because

we collectively betrayed our own Mother.

Sigh.

This is all I want.

This, and to wake up knowing that you

too have your eyes open enough

to go place your vote for the world

that you want to wake up to.

~ Jamie K. Reaser, Author

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