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Manila Bulletin devider Lifestyle devider Parenting devider Gandhi's Words

Gandhi's Words

Published Oct 26, 2019 10:00 pm

By GRETCHEN FILART DUBLIN

 

Mr. Gandhi,

I shred your words in the kitchen

as I watch

mothers gather their children in Homs

sound asleep,

their pale limbs stuporous

in their white cocoons

as we light our candles

and fathers beckon the Barrys and the Smiths to their seas.

 

The tyrants,

celebratory in their bloodstained uniforms,

await another opportune time

to sack the cities.

 

Mr. Gandhi,

how much do words weigh

when brothers murder brothers

and blood turns thinner than air—

its crimson color now bleak

in parched boots?

 

There is no God

higher than truth,

you say and yet truths, no more than prophets and gods,

are but tools

being skewed according to advantage.

 

Perhaps you could spare us one or two

Peace Nobel Prize words

in this grim time of raw sorrow and dispossessed tears

so we can write them in our books

and glean from your wisdom.

And one day,

words will weigh so much more than sarin

that the ground cannot escape them,

that they cannot be skewed by power-hungry cowards

hiding behind artillery.

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