<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class="">Heal the Cracks in the Bell of the World</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""> <span style="font-size: 14px;" class=""><i class="">For the community of Newtown, Connecticut,</i></span></div><div class=""><span style="font-size: 14px;" class=""><i class=""> where twenty students and six educators lost their</i></span></div><div class=""><span style="font-size: 14px;" class=""><i class=""> lives to a gunman at Sandy Hook Elementary</i></span></div><div class=""><span style="font-size: 14px;" class=""><i class=""> School, December 14, 2012</i></span></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""> </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Now the bells speak with their tongues of bronze.</div><div class="">Now the bells open their mouths of bronze to say:</div><div class="">Listen to the bells a world away. Listen to the bell in the ruins</div><div class="">of a city where children gathered copper shells like beach glass,</div><div class="">and the copper boiled in the foundry, and the bell born</div><div class="">in the foundry says: I was born of bullets, but now I sing</div><div class="">of a world where bullets melt into bells. Listen to the bell</div><div class="">in a city where cannons from the armies of the Great War</div><div class="">sank into molten metal bubbling like a vat of chocolate,</div><div class="">and the many mouths that once spoke the tongue of smoke</div><div class="">form the one mouth of a bell that says: I was born of cannons,</div><div class="">but now I sing of a world where cannons melt into bells.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Listen to the bells in a town with a flagpole on Main Street,</div><div class="">a rooster weathervane keeping watch atop the Meeting House,</div><div class="">the congregation gathering to sing in times of great silence.</div><div class="">Here the bells rock their heads of bronze as if to say:</div><div class="">Melt the bullets into bells, melt the bullets into bells.</div><div class="">Here the bells raise their heavy heads as if to say:</div><div class="">Melt the cannons into bells, melt the cannons into bells.</div><div class="">Here the bells sing of a world where weapons crumble deep</div><div class="">in the earth, and no one remembers where they were buried.</div><div class="">Now the bells pass the word at midnight in the ancient language</div><div class="">of bronze, from bell to bell, like ships smuggling news of liberation</div><div class="">from island to island, the song rippling through the clouds.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Now the bells chime like the muscle beating in every chest,</div><div class="">heal the cracks in the bell of every face listening to the bells.</div><div class="">The chimes heal the cracks in the bell of the moon.</div><div class="">The chimes heal the cracks in the bell of the world.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- MartÃn Espada</div></div></body></html>