Spring, 2007, Remembering Blacksburg, Virginia
Dear Relatives,
My wife Pat’s father attended Virginia Tech, as did her brother Jon and she herself.
Pat and I met on Spruce Run Mountain, just outside Blacksburg, Virginia in 1971.
This poem is for all of us who wish to come to an understanding and an embrace of this spring,
with its blooms, buds, and blossoms,
and its killing freezes.
May All Beings Discover How They Are Loved.
With respect and humility,
Paul
–
Paul Gallimore, Director
Long Branch Environmental Education Center
POB 369 Big Sandy Mush Creek
Leicester, NC 28748
Tel. 828.683.3662
Fax: 828.683.9211
Email: paulg@main.nc.us
Web Site: www.LongBrancheec.org
PLEASE CALL ME BY MY TRUE NAMES
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Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow -
Even today I am still arriving.
Look deeply: every second I am arriving
To be a bud on a Spring branch,
To be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
Learning to sing in my new nest,
To be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
To be a jewel hiding itself in stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
To fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
Of all that is alive.
I am a mayfly metamorphosing
On the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
That swoops down to swallow the mayfly.
I am a frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
That silently feeds itself on the frog.
I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
My legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant
Selling deadly weapons to Uganda.
I am the twelve-year-old girl,
Refugee on a small boat,
Who throws herself into the ocean
After being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate
My heart not yet capable
Of seeing and loving.
I am a member of the politburo,
With plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
His “debt of blood” to my people
Dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.
My joy is like Spring, so warm
It makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
So vast it fills the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names,
So I can hear all my cries and laughter at once,
So I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
So I can wake up
And the door of my heart
Could be left open,
The door of compassion.
– Thich Nhat Hanh