River To Sea: A Prayer - Linda Blachman

[Lawrence Robinson]

River To Sea: A Prayer   			 						
	There is no way to peace. Peace is the way. – Thich Nhat Hanh
		   
From the river to the sea
Let there be space for all beings
Space to breathe, to be free
Let mercy blanket this blood-soaked land
A sacrament. 			

From the river to the sea 
Let there be two histories 
Two religions, two cultures, two people
with thousand-year memories
Two ancestral chains, two ancestral claims
to homes, olive trees, security. 
					
Let sweet silence ring over hills and wadis   
Cease fires cease with binding treaties	
Let the rumble of revenge be stilled   
Let the rubble be tilled
No more children traumatized, orphaned, maimed, killed 
No more tyrants and terrorists playing games with everyone’s lives 
Children can’t wait for adults to grow up
No one can heal until everything stops.           

Let the dead rest, send adults to their room   
for a needed time out, for facing the truth 
owning their pain, a reckoning, an end to
comparing miseries, competing certainties 
dredging up prooftexts throughout history
	who lost more who cost more
	who harmed more who killed more
	who should be shamed who should be blamed
	who gave more who saved more
	who victim who villain
	who victor who vanquished
	who suffered more who sinned more 

Enough!
Don’t let the past define the future. 
Nor current wars dictate endless war
Polluting the skies, defacing the earth
Narrowing minds, tormenting souls
Power has corrupted. Madness has erupted.
Survival of the fittest breeds brutality 
What has happened to morality?   	     																				


Surrender!    
There is nowhere to go. No other land. 
Make a way out of dead ends
No one is leaving. Everyone is bleeding. 

Surrender!
Dismantle the architecture of terror, trauma’s machinery 
Iron domes, basement bunkers, refugee camps, tunnels of tragedy
Bury allegiance to hatred, violence, martyrdom, greed
Bury lies, manipulation, failed ideologies.  

Supplant grandiose myths of glorious conquest
with simple stories of human dignity
Replace fevered dreams of total victory
with plans for collective freedom and security 
Embrace equality, good and evil as inborn capacities
Let arrogance melt into humility.

Break down the walls, shatter the ceilings
Break the mirrors, encounter your fears  
Renounce eye for an eye 
Instead meet eye to eye 
See your own face in the face of the enemy
the heartbreak, the yearning, and the humanity.

Do not say it cannot be done 
Who could have imagined the walk on the moon 
An end to The Troubles
German acts of remorse and reparation  
Mandela free. Electricity. The Statue of Liberty 
now weeping and bowed. But remember: 
When the people rise up, dictators fall
Dead oligarchs must abandon their money 
Dead ideologues their dogmas, rigidity, zealotry
New construction follows destruction.

Turn the pages
Call in the Angels
Call in the Sages
Pen something good and 
bright for the Ages. 

											2



Let wise hope rise from the river to the sea
An awakening of moral imagination, creativity
Dream new dreams. Welcome neuroplasticity.
Trauma can heal 
Habits of harming can morph into mourning.

Take courage from those who cross borders
Who greet their shadow, welcome the stranger            
Coax rivers of sorrow towards paths for tomorrow
Who let tears flow and trust grow
Allow grief to soften the hardened ground
Who prepare to do what has rarely been done
Hand over their guns, sheath their knives
Risk being vulnerable for everyone’s lives 			
Steeped in loss but no one a loser
Taking a chance on a better future.

Where every child will be well fed, carried into sleep 
sheltered in bed with pillowed heads
Schooled in truth, compassion, decency 
unafraid of beautiful diversity.

Where every home is a house of safety
inviting curiosity, possibility, hospitality
protected by Divinity.
  
Two ancient people on their own land secure and free  
Peaceful at last between the river and the sea.  

		- Linda Blachman
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