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
Feel free to share
Posts
