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

☼

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.

 

*****

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.)

*****

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Fun

Emily's Quotes

“And the sun and the moon sometimes argue over who will tuck me in at night. If you think I am having more fun than anyone on this planet, you are absolutely correct.” ― Hafiz

“One thing I had learned from watching chimpanzees with their infants is that having a child should be fun.” ― Jane Goodall

“Fun is closely related to Joy -- a sort of emotional froth arising from the play of instinct.” ― C.S. Lewis

 Midweek Motif ~ Fun

Can you list 10 ways you have fun?

Fun for me is ACTIVE, like: licking the cooking spoon, playing a challenging game of Scrabble, drinking tea while visiting, reading a good book, re-reading the good book, praying while coloring, stroking the cats until they purr, writing a poem in an un-rushed time, reading poetry aloud, and taking long walks on cool days.  That's 10 things.  What's the first 10 that occur to you?  the next 10?  

The challenge:  In a new poem, find a meaningful way to have fun fore-grounding fun.

Children’s Games by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1560)

Children’sGames

 by William Carlos Williams 

(I)

This is a schoolyard

crowded

with children

of all ages near a village

on a small stream

meandering by

where some boys

are swimming

bare-ass

or climbing a tree in leaf

everything

is motion

elder women are looking

after the small

fry

a play wedding a

christening

nearby one leans

hollering

into

an empty hogshead

(II)

Little girls

whirling their skirts about

until they stand out flat

tops pinwheels

to run in the wind with

or a toy in 3 tiers to spin

with a piece

of twine to make it go

blindman’s-buff follow the

leader stilts

high and low tipcat jacks

bowls hanging by the knees

standing on your head

run the gauntlet

a dozen on their backs

feet together kicking

through which a boy must pass

roll the hoop or a

construction

made of bricks

some mason has abandoned

(III)

The desperate toys

of children

their

imagination equilibrium

and rocks

which are to be

found

everywhere

and games to drag

the other down

blindfold

to make use of

a swinging

weight

with which

at random

to bash in the

heads about

them

Brueghel saw it all

and with his grim

humor faithfully

recorded

it.

Country Boy in Winter

BY SARAH ORNE JEWETT

The wind may blow the snow about, 

For all I care, says Jack, 

And I don’t mind how cold it grows, 

For then the ice won’t crack. 

Old folks may shiver all day long, 

But I shall never freeze; 

What cares a jolly boy like me 

For winter days like these? 

Far down the long snow-covered hills 

It is such fun to coast, 

So clear the road! the fastest sled 

There is in school I boast. 

The paint is pretty well worn off, 

But then I take the lead; 

A dandy sled’s a loiterer, 

And I go in for speed. 

When I go home at supper-time, 

Ki! but my cheeks are red! 

They burn and sting like anything; 

I’m cross until I’m fed. 

You ought to see the biscuit go, 

I am so hungry then; 

And old Aunt Polly says that boys 

Eat twice as much as men. 

There’s always something I can do 

To pass the time away; 

The dark comes quick in winter-time— 

A short and stormy day 

And when I give my mind to it, 

It’s just as father says, 

I almost do a man’s work now, 

And help him many ways. 

I shall be glad when I grow up 

And get all through with school, 

I’ll show them by-and-by that I 

Was not meant for a fool. 

I’ll take the crops off this old farm, 

I’ll do the best I can. 

A jolly boy like me won’t be 

A dolt when he’s a man. 

I like to hear the old horse neigh 

Just as I come in sight, 

The oxen poke me with their horns 

To get their hay at night. 

Somehow the creatures seem like friends, 

And like to see me come. 

Some fellows talk about New York, 

But I shall stay at home.

Nostalgia 3 by Sunil Pookode  (2016)
(Used without Permission.  Forgive me.)

a song in the front yard

BY GWENDOLYN BROOKS

I’ve stayed in the front yard all my life.

I want a peek at the back

Where it’s rough and untended and hungry weed grows. 

A girl gets sick of a rose.

I want to go in the back yard now   

And maybe down the alley,

To where the charity children play.   

I want a good time today.

They do some wonderful things.

They have some wonderful fun.

My mother sneers, but I say it’s fine

How they don’t have to go in at quarter to nine.   

My mother, she tells me that Johnnie Mae   

Will grow up to be a bad woman.

That George’ll be taken to Jail soon or late

(On account of last winter he sold our back gate).

But I say it’s fine. Honest, I do.

And I’d like to be a bad woman, too,

And wear the brave stockings of night-black lace   

And strut down the streets with paint on my face.

🎲

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 ~ Cloud)

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Unity

http://www.unityproject.net/

 “We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business;

we are each other's magnitude and bond.”

― Gwendolyn Brooks

“Pit race against race, religion against religion,

prejudice against prejudice. Divide and conquer!

We must not let that happen here.”

― Eleanor Roosevelt

“I felt knowledge and the unity of the world

circulate in me like my own blood.”

― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

 "Unity" Sculpture at Federal Building & U.S. Courthouse

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Midweek Motif ~ Unity

Is there anything that doesn't work better with Unity?

As a principle of design, unity: "occurs when all of
the elements of a piece combine to make a balanced,

harmonious, complete whole. Unity is another of those

hard-to-describe art terms but, when it's present,

your eye and brain are pleased to see it."

 Versus:

Dis                 u

n

i                                                     ty

Your Challenge: In a new poem, bring diverse or disparate entities into unity.  

Excerpt from The Anti-Suffragists

BY CHARLOTTE ANNA PERKINS GILMAN

Fashionable women in luxurious homes,

With men to feed them, clothe them, pay their bills,

Bow, doff the hat, and fetch the handkerchief;

Hostess or guest, and always so supplied

With graceful deference and courtesy;

Surrounded by their servants, horses, dogs, —

These tell us they have all the rights they want.

Successful women who have won their way

Alone, with strength of their unaided arm,

Or helped by friends, or softly climbing up

By the sweet aid of ‘woman’s influence’;

Successful any way, and caring naught

For any other woman’s unsuccess, —

These tell us they have all the rights they want.

. . . .  (Read the rest of this amazing poem HERE.)

I Have Learned So Much

BY HAFITZ

I
haveLearned

So much from God
That I can no longer
Call
Myself

A Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim,
A Buddhist, a Jew.

The Truth has shared so much of Itself
With me

That I can no longer call myself
A man, a woman, an angel,
Or even pure
Soul.

Love has
Befriended Hafiz so completely
It has turned to ash
And freed
Me

Of every concept and image
My mind has ever known.

The Red Wheelbarrow

by William Carlos Williams

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

#

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

( Next week Sumana’s Midweek Motif will be ~ Change)