In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “I Pledge Allegiance.”
I Pledge Allegiance — A Not-Quite Poem
©September 12th, 2015
By Vijaya Sundaram
I pledge allegiance to the Truth,
Which is the web of this world,
And in the web of my mind.
I pledge to mesh both webs
Into whole cloth, if I can.
The Truth, to which I bow
Will not be swayed,
Though deceivers try and subvert it.
For Truth waits, hidden, but potent,
In its patience, waiting to reveal this:
That Life furthers life,
And Death furthers death,
And all life passes into death,
And there is no Beyond.
Only these linger awhile:
Our deeds, our words, our art, our music.
Our imagination, our fears and loves
Our satisfactions and lusts,
Our work and play,
Our dreams and nightmares,
Turned into music and dance,
Our futile, but lyrical railing against Death
Through monuments and songs,
And even these fade, and then,
Dust remains, until it re-forms
And takes on new shapes
And new life, or floats off into
The ether, photonically stoic.
That is all.
I pledge allegiance to this Truth.
I pledge allegiance to our Earth,
And pledge to teach those who deny her suffering,
Who claim all the while that they are doing ‘God’s will,’
While making this world a gutter and a sewer.
I pledge to not judge, but teach,
To learn and and to help,
To be true to this in word and deed.
I pledge to water and plant, and pick up
And clean, and to reduce and reuse
All that I need in my life.
So this Earth, this blue-green,
Living sphere, spinning
Through these universes,
Where broods the Numinosum —
that Dream-Drive that propels gravity
And imbues all the things which are
And which are not —
Sings a song of hope and sorrow,
And I listen to her, as she sings.
And I will sing with her.
To her, my Earth, I pledge my allegiance.
And I pledge allegiance to Love, always.
Love does conquer all, if you will let it.
Though oft-used, wrung-out and dried,
And peddled in stores in trite cards and triter treats,
And whispered in rapturous voices
Over the ecstatic exchange of rings,
And the flashing of cameras,
And extolled in places of worship,
And uttered in passing to someone you know,
Love is simply this:
Reflection upon reflection upon reflection
Of you in the Other, and the Other in you,
Mutually acknowledging, infinitely
Recursive, and all in the same dance.
Love is seeing beauty and being beauty
Loving all you observe
And observing all that you love
With equal distance and closeness,
Eyes reflecting the eyes of others
Seeing beauty, and being what you see
Knowing, whether you love those beings, or not,
They are fully and wholly themselves,
But when you love them, they gain a glow
In your vision, and perhaps, you glow for them.
For, in acknowledgement, are we magnified.
And in love, are we amplified, so that
We are as large as life itself.
And so, I pledge allegiance to Life.
See the bright gleam in the eye of the rabbit,
Or the quick flash of fear in the squirrel
When your dog leaps after it?
They are life.
Pledge allegiance to them.
I do.
See the quickening interest
Lighting up your dog’s face when it
Smells its own blood from the cut
It accidentally received at the groomer’s?
Remembering it is a carnivore,
You love its carnivorousness,
Even though you might be vegan.
It is all of life.
Pledge allegiance to all of this.
I do.
See the flash of woodpecker-wing
As it flies to and from your bird-feeder,
Or from branch to branch?
Or the flicker of a tufted titmouse,
As it swiftly swoops down to eat birdseed?
Or that bold usurper the blue-jay, as he pushes
All the rest away, lordly and larger than them,
So that you’re amused and annoyed, both?
So full of life they are, they glow.
Pledge allegiance to them —
I do.
See the children holding their parents’ hands
So full of sweetness and trust,
So sure that their parents will love and protect
And cherish and defend, and teach
And play and grow with them —
And all this, not stated, but knowing
In the marrow of their bones as an implicit right?
Pledge allegiance to love and protect them.
I do.
And then see other children’s eyes, full of pain
So full of hurt puzzlement
And betrayal and terror and hunger,
For that trust was betrayed, somehow,
Somewhere, by the grownups who were
So pledged to protect and love —
Because, war, or famine, or slavery,
Or perversion, or greed, or hatred
Tore out their hearts, and they
Changed, utterly,
And love and life were betrayed.
Pledge allegiance to these children,
Help reclaim life for them.
I do and will.
I pledge allegiance to beauty.
Inhale the scent of lilacs in the springtime
Or roses in the summer, or lotuses
When you chance upon them,
And pledge allegiance to them,
For they are beautiful.
I do.
See that beautiful smile in an old face
And the joyous smile of a baby,
And those lovely, wrinkled, aging hands
And that long-bladed grass bending in the breeze
And this sunlight slipping lazily through leaves
And the lap-lapping of water on the lake-shore
And hear the laughter of children in a park?
Pledge allegiance to them, for they are beautiful.
I do.
See the flash of dolphins leaping through air
Flashing through water,
Chasing and racing in joy?
See the slow, large elephants
And their frisky young
As they revel in water and mud?
See the lions and the tigers
Lords of this world
Sun-gleam in their eyes,
Indifferent to our adoration?
See the people flowing through
Rivers of traffic, through
Subways and turnstiles,
And schools and markets,
And wildernesses and parks,
Full of dreams and hunger
And hopes and sometimes, sorrow?
They are all beautiful.
Pledge allegiance to them.
I do.
And when the powerful strike
Down the powerless,
And the rage chokes my throat
And when the hurt rises
And blinds me,
And when an inchoate anger
Bubbles, a primordial
Lavascape, at all the injustice
And all the murders, and all
The pillaging, and all the greed
I pledge to right my part of the
World, with music,
With kindness, with patience,
With righteous action.
I pledge this, and more.
And hope for the strength
To live life in the light
Of that which is right.
See the Earth as your mother, and you will love her.
See the Air as your father, and you will listen to his song.
See your Self in the mirror, and love that Self
Smile at that Self, pledge allegiance to yourself.
Then, look outward into the world
Set your face against the darkness
And towards the sun, and see
Where go the wretched and the needy
And the hateful and the seedy,
And the slow and the speedy.
And love them all.
Look for the beauty that was,
For, tarnished metal sometimes hides its silver shine,
Sometimes, not.
Find the shine and love them.
And pledge allegiance to them.
For they are beautiful.
I do.
The earth swings too swiftly for me to bear it
With so much around me to love!
And the sands run out always,
And again, the hourglass gets tipped over,
And over and over again.
And the grains fall inevitably towards death.
But, oh how beautiful is their motion!
For, there’s inevitability and surprise,
And calm, utter calm, at the bottom of
Everything, while everything keeps moving,
Moving towards a resolution, an end.
To all these, and to all of you,
I bow, and take my turn at the dance,
And revolve, and rotate and spin,
Dizzily, ever more dizzily,
And while I do,
I pledge my allegiance
Again, and again, forevermore.
________________________________________________________________________
P.S. Wrote this is a state of sleepless stupefaction. The poem didn’t come easily because of that. I’m trying to stick to a daily regimen of writing, though (but I MUST sleep early tonight).
I looked, and saw that I had done FOURTEEN edits on this — a departure from my usual dash-off and run writing, and it’s STILL not working.
Perhaps, I should just leave it alone?
And yes, I mean what I said in the poem, even if I don’t sound as poetic as I’d like to have been.