SAY NO TO ANGER, NO TO HATRED

Say no to the anger of Achilles, son of Peleus, who strides in lightning-bright armor
Say no to the anger of Cain, from whose hands a brother’s blood drips onto the weeping earth
Say no to the anger of the Olympian gods, in whose eyes a storm blazes

Do not harbor that fever in your breast—the one that, with a sudden crack,
Shatters the peace within your bones
Do not let it take up residence in the realms of your mind
Where trees topple like brittle reeds
Do not bury it in your heart—a garden yearning for the rain of gentleness
And withering like a petal in the scorching heat

Be a sea without waves; be the dew born upon the eyelashes of dawn
Be the cure for the vortex of passion, for the embers and sparks,
For the dangerous glimmers hidden beneath the ash
For the unquenched volcanoes that awaken time and again
To erupt in conflict and unmourned casualties

Extinguish your hatred for the enemy
Perhaps your extinguished fire will quiet him
Perhaps he will hear the heart ticking away
Both your moment and his, and recognize
That in blood and body, you were both born
Of the same human kind

Let your mind be a rose garden without thorns,
Let every thought that sprouts carry the fragrance of forgiveness
Bar the way to the shadows of malice,
Let them not enter the City of pure light