i
homo sum:
humani nil a me alienum puto.
these words were first written
by the latin dramatist,
terentius, & more than
fifteen hundred years later,
montaigne had them carved
into the beam above his
bed.
i first encountered them
in translation:
I am a man: therefore there is
nothing human to which I am
a stranger.
& over my life, they transformed
into:
i am a human being: i care
for all things human.
& later to:
i care.
ii
one time, already long ago,
my friend, scott, scribbled a
note on a strip of yellow paper.
it was a zen note––the words
laughed at each other &
didn’t quite fit into this
world. my mind opened
& heart smiled, just to
know this was
possible.
iii
lao tzu was riding on an
imagined donkey
on his departure from the
kingdom of
zhou. i met him
on the road &
he told me:
believe only what is
common sense for the
heart… & passed
on.
iv
i witnessed the falling
towers & survived the
terrible battle of wasting
sickness
within.
v
in a time of war,
i am honest as a
wind chime & my
song is
lovingkindness.
as a child,
my heart was
pierced with
wrath––
i learned
to be a man
from the drunken
veterans of the good &
righteous war. i witnessed
wife harm
& child harm
& the hate of
blacks & gays & others
in the raving new jersey
night.
i learned from the
violence of the street
gangs & the bar fights &
the seething family
gatherings on
holidays. from the broken
glass & barbed wire of the
schoolyards, from the drug-
dealers with their razors &
guns. from the deaths of
john & robert kennedy &
luther king & lennon. from
the civil riots in newark &
harlem & d.c.,
how human
beings should not
be.
i lived through a time of
deadly cold
invisible war, & the arms
trade, & the a-bomb, &
c.i.a. coups in africa, in
south america, east asia & the middle
east & the urgent regime changes of
allende & mosaddegh & hussein
& gaddafi …
& wars of discretion in
korea & vietnam & lebanon &
grenada & panama & bosnia &
afghanistan & iraq & libya
& syria & the
earth kept churning blood &
dirt with catastrophic
explosions.
vi
so much infernal
rage in the world &
mutilating disaster
all sanctified by
blindness & mania.
vii
wars & wars of
wars without
end
war blithely
kills with suspended
conscience
& justice
drown in the rhetoric of
bombs.
viii
egyptian against
hittite––
assryian against
babylonian––
caesar against
saracen––
blue against
grey––
blades &
smoke––
curses &
blood––
eternal
irretrievable
tragedy
ix
buddha raised his
hand &
spears turned to
flowers.
x
with war everywhere
in the world & the
environment
over-heating––
my life seems
stained, unholy––
still i possess the
freedom to imagine
& the need to
pray––
o, Great Mother-Father-
Compassion in this
universe––
forgive us our vast
hungry
catastrophes
of greed.
if You made us in Your
likeness, save us from
ourselves––
grant us enough wisdom
to make it impossible
for men evermore
to hunt men––
bless us every one with
a soul that seeks
the truth, a heart that
treasures goodness
& eyes that see
beauty in every filament
of light.
save the children,
save the animals, the
fishes & the flowers &
the sky & the sea of Your
creation.
we are Your people, yet
our hearts are jealous &
empty.
breathe life once
more into this
clay &
protect us from
the evil in the
shadow of our
power.
with great metal
factories we have
established hell on
earth
& we accept/allow the
suffering of others
in daily tabloid
color.
my heart is Your
Heart & it is in
pain.
i pray & i hope &
i believe You created us to
care.
homo sum.