Waiting
by Gary Steven Corseri
www.dissidentvoice.org
August 6, 2005



 

"While God waits for his temples to be built of Love,
men bring stones."

 -- Rabindranath Tagore 
       

"They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears
into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword
against nation: neither shall they learn war anymore."

-- Isaiah

 

Two thousand years of Christ for this?
Willing the killing of our similar kind?
Muslim and Jew in macabre embrace
in Koran and Torah--blessed/cursed/entwined. 

Ishmael and Jacob, Moses and Christ--
And we can't get it right, though sharing the text.
There in the garden, the poor girl enticed
sets up the story--and there's no exit.

We know what comes next--what came before--
two thousand years of generals and drums.
And only the occasional flicker
of a mind like Suleiman's or Solomon's.

We peep around the giant's boots, the lot
of us, weasel-like, bowing to idols,
abandoning Earth for the sake of what
is ultimately real--guns and medals.

Isaiah waits for the ploughshares-beating.
Muhammad is pruning the pear trees, waiting.
Theresa, Assissi and Gautama are waiting.
All through the night's murk: wailing ghosts bleating.
 

Gary Steven Corseri’s dramas have been published, and broadcast over PBS-Atlanta;  his articles, stories and poems have appeared in/at The New York Times, Dissident Voice, Common Dreams, CounterPunch, Axis Of Logic, The Village Voice and some 200 other periodicals and e-zines.  He has published two poetry collections and two novels, edited the Manifestations anthology, and has taught in public schools and prisons in the U.S., and at universities in the U.S. and Japan.  He can be contacted at: corseri@verizon.net.

Other Articles and Poems by Gary Corseri

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