The Murderer's House

By Mary Oliver

Now small boys come to stare across the garden
Where flowers cast their petals day by day
Over the ground, and search the wind for winter,
And no one comes to chase the boys away.
This is a house of dark and mumbled fame.

Driving alone at night, sometimes I've seen
A thin light burning deep within the rooms,
And thought how when the violent pass, how few
They leave to shed their tears upon the scene.

This is our failure, that in all the world
Only the stricken have learned how to grieve.
Safe in our cars, we pause along the highway
As one by one the leveling seasons fall;
And one by one we drive away, rejoicing
In such a distance as could strike us all

Call Me by My True Names

By Thich Naht 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 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 am still arriving, in order to laugh and to cry,
in order to fear and to hope,
the rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of every living creature.

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
that it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so fast that it fills all four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and 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 open the door of my heart,
the door of compassion.

Readings of August 7, 2005