Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Truth (in honor of Gandhi's birthday)

^" . . .  and the truth will set you free.” 

 John 8:32 (NIV)

    

http://www.satyagrahafoundation.org/category/theory/page/2/

“Truth implies love, and firmness engenders force. I thus began to call the Indian movement satyagraha; that is to say, the force that is born of truth and love or nonviolence…. Satyagraha is soul-force pure and simple.” M. K. Gandhi

 “The use of satyagraha is based upon the immutable maxim that government of the people is possible only so long as they consent either consciously or unconsciously to be governed.”

 M. K. Gandhi

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Midweek Motif ~ Truth 

(in honor of Gandhi's birthday)

Many call out the American President for being untruthful, but in Gandhi's use of the word "truth" all of us who don't insist on truth are at fault.  When we decide not to be governed by the lies and omissions, we will live our truth. Our resistance will be clear, public, and active.

Truth is not a timid word. 

Truth is not a weak path.

Your Challenge:  Write a new poem in which readers can experience truth in action.  

Gandhi picking salt during Salt Satyagraha to defy colonial law giving salt collection monopoly to the British.

Bapu - A True Satyagrahi
(A student project: Please identify the author if you can!)

Mahatma the enlightened one
Won a war without sword or gun
Born in Saurashtra, a small coastal town
Which because of him achieved world Renown
A gentle human with a rare philosophy
Left his imprint in the annals of History
He threw back the conquerors across the seas
By showing them the power of his inner peace
Ahimsa he followed and brought a bloodless revolution
Without him our country we couldn't call our Nation
His message to us is simple and clear
If we, ignore it, the price we pay is dear
Discriminate not on creed or caste
Stand united, be Indian first and last
Bapu, sometimes I dream if you were in our midst
Wouldn't you face up to the terrorists,
Wouldn't you convert him who smuggles and plunders
Wouldn't you set right our wayward leaders,
Wouldn't you today save my country
And restore it to its ultimate Glory???
Bapu, I dream, a dream, will my dream come true
Will you be born again
My country needs you.

“We Are Striking to Disrupt the System”

Daily News Digest  Democracy

Greta Thunberg

by Liz Brownlee

When the whole world is deaf
by greed and by choice,
how do you change things
with only your voice?
It’s hard to be noticed,
harder to be heard
but she stood up and spoke,
could not be deterred.
What made them listen?
What cut through their lies?
Not the pollution
or the fast melting ice,
not the experts or science,
not hunger or flood,
not the extinctions
our hands red with blood,
it was her steady gaze,
on our planet, alight,
her desperate calm,
her demand, make it right,
it’s what we’ll recall
of her fight for our youth,
her luminous words
her courage, her truth.
© Liz Brownlee

Tell All The Truth

By Emily Dickinson

Tell all the truth but tell it slant,

Success in circuit lies,

Too bright for our infirm delight

The truth's superb surprise;

As lightning to the children eased

With explanation kind,

The truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind.

truth

By Gwendolyn Brooks

And if sun comes

How shall we greet him?

Shall we not dread him,

Shall we not fear him

After so lengthy a

Session with shade?

Though we have wept for him,

Though we have prayed

All through the night-years—

What if we wake one shimmering morning to

Hear the fierce hammering

Of his firm knuckles

Hard on the door?

Shall we not shudder?—

Shall we not flee

Into the shelter, the dear thick shelter

Of the familiar

Propitious haze?

Sweet is it, sweet is it

To sleep in the coolness

Of snug unawareness.

The dark hangs heavily

Over the eyes.

 

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Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community—

(Next week Sumana’s Midweek Motif will be ~ Everyday Living.)

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